An Israeli Dialogue in a Dark Time

We often hear a version of what one respectful interlocutor (RI) said in response to my posting this excruciating photo on my Facebook page.

In it, we see a man, presumably, a father, walking a bicycle with two young, sleeping children somehow astride it, one child’s head on the bike’s seat, the other’s head on the handlebars. Of three children’s feet visible, two are without shoes. The child in front appears to be wearing a diaper. The child behind is clearly filthy. The man’s hand is bandaged. It is pitch black night. “A Father transporting his children in Gaza, trying to protect them,” my caption began.

Then, I said,
“In God’s name.”

Because RI’s response to my post is often heard (there were others, not meriting considered response), I reproduce it here, with some of my expanded comments in reply.

RI:

What the United States of America did to the Japanese people during WWII, after Pearl Harbor, was infinitely more brutal and inhumane. And I will note that the Japanese did not rape, dismember, burn civilians alive, in front of their victims’ children/parents, or take hostage even one single American in their attack against the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. The US, in their carpet bombing of Japanese cities, DELIBERATELY killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians, and ultimately a full 3 million Japanese people. And they did the same to the German people, in their carpet bombing of Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, and countless other German and Austrian cities. Shulamit, sovereign countries are allowed defeat enemy countries that attack them. Israel is doing this far more humanely than any country in history.

SM:

Your comment about fascist Japan is utterly, shockingly, ignorant of the most basic historical facts. Do, please, google about what the fascist, racist Japanese regime did in Nanjing, China; typing in, “the rape of Nanjing” brings up ample material and references for further reading. A survivor, an utterly brilliant dr. of Chinese medicine once took me out to lunch to tell me about it, knowing I am Jewish and apparently, had mentioned that my mother was the only survivor of her family. Do educate yourself about what that regime did to civilians in China.

But do please also google what that Japanese regime did to civilians in Korea (institutionalized rape, for one, of Korean women in Japanese brothels for the “service” of occupying soldiers), and in the Philippines, and any other place the Japanese regime conquered, ravaged, annihilated, crucifying, beheading, people, wanton burning.

As for Pearl Harbor and the Japanese not taking hostages– you do know-?- that that attack was entirely by air? But you might also look up what was done to captured Allied soldiers and sailors in Japanese camps. There’s a good movie on Netflix, “Unbroken,” for just one accessible source, based on a true story, though all this is basic knowledge.

The “whatabout” response about other horrible regimes, and the Allies, is a sorry tactic to divert attention in Israel, where we most need to pay attention and let in uncomfortable, horrific truths, from what Israel is doing now.

Which actions, again, have zero to do with ending Hamas.

Tanks and airplanes don’t end guerilla, terror groups (read about: Vietnam; the Soviet Army in Afghanistan; US bombing in Afghanistan, the bombing by Saudi Arabia, the US, and Israel of the Houthis in Yemen; the situations now in Sudan, Libya). Replacing the terror regime with one that truly governs and addresses civilian needs does. And that this Israeli government has utterly refused to do. Did you not hear Smotrich last week talking about Gaza as real estate “bonanza,” after Gazans are expelled, treated to an expanded version of what is being done to Palestinians on the west bank, violence he funds lavishly with our tax shekels while schools, hospitals, destroyed kibbutzim and towns, overburdened miluimnikim and their families, go begging? Or Ben Gvir, tempting his police with the promise of sea front apartments after the army, our children, pay with their bodies and lives in Gaza– all while he, Smotrich, and the rest of this regime press relentlessly to exempt haredim from any army burden but happily keep piling the burdens onto those who do serve, cynically exploiting legitimate concerns for Israel’s security and the trauma of Oct. 7? Have you not heard Netanyahu speaking similarly of Gaza as an Israeli boon story for the taking– after, of course, it is cleared by the army under the Hamas pretext– Trump having led the way with obscene, imperialist real estate yammerings?

You speak of your son. Is this what you want him endangering body and life for? For this– and for them, the leaders of this regime?

How can you remain in the konzeptsia you depict, your reading of what is going on, as if this is two years, or even 15 months, ago? When it has no more relation to current reality than did the konzeptsia that had us frozen in denial until Oct. 7?

RI:

They have awful leaders, who chose to start this war, and refuse to end the war simply by releasing the Israeli hostages.

SM:

We have awful leaders, who choose to continue this war long beyond its military justification or purpose for the political benefit of the regime and that of real estate capitalism, and who refuse to end it for the sake of the country, never mind, that of the hostages and their families. Despite all the military and intelligence heads saying that the current operation is a “malkodet mavet,” a death trap for soldiers and hostages with no rational military purpose; that it is playing whac-a-mole with guerilla lone operatives instead of replacing Hamas through diplomatic deals that have been on the table even before this war and certainly, during it, translating significant military achievement into strategic planning and action for a better future.

No contest, Hamas is what it is. How does that justify us inflicting horrific, ongoing suffering on Gazan civilians– just like Hamas?