ENOUGH!
In recent weeks, I received a post by Rachel Goldberg-Polin many times from many friends in Israel and abroad. As you recall, she is the mother of Hersh, who was killed last year by Hamas along with five other hostages in a tunnel in Gaza. In some of the posts that I received, it came with the word ENOUGH in Hebrew, Arabic and English (see photo above). This simple word expressed the feelings of most of the citizens of Israel and most of the Jews in the world, and probably most of humanity by now.
In this beautiful post, which inspired me and millions of people in Israel, Rachel reached out to the world and to the Prime Minister when she wrote:
Give us back our 50 hostages. Some are alive and some are only alive in our souls. Let the innocent people who are in Gaza have a chance. We are tired. We are done. We are children of God. Stop playing with us and our lives.
As often has been the case during the last 22 months, Rachel Goldberg-Polin has spoken for many of us, perhaps most of us, in Israel and beyond. We have identified with her and her husband, Jonathan, for a long time. We share their pain and at the same time their positive outlook on life, especially the idea that we need to depart from evil and do good in the world, as much as we can.
Like them, we have had enough of this “forever war” of Bibi and his buddies, Smotrich and Ben Gvir and the others. We are sick of their war and tired of their strident statements and their destructive policies, which have created a disastrous humanitarian crisis in Gaza and a moral and spiritual crisis in Israel, leading to deep despair and disillusionment with the current fanatic, extremist, barbaric government of Israel.
For example, last week, Bibi and his pals continued to deny the starvation that they have brought upon the Palestinian people of Gaza, even though this is very well documented by many reputable sources. They live in a fabricated world of denial and spin, which most people in the world are not buying any more, except perhaps the fanatics in their “base”.
But when they are not in full denial, they are planning the full ethnic cleansing which they call “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip (and from the West Bank) and the renewed settlement of Jewish extremists there, which they say is in accord with the statements of the President of the USA, Mr. Trump, who is, of course, every bit as crazy as they are! Not only has he not succeed in ending this war (or the one between Russia and Ukraine) but he is encouraging Bibi and his partners to keep it going!
In addition, the detached and unhinged Prime Minister of Israel said last week that any diplomatic solution is a form of surrender! That is one of the most absurd and ignorant things that I have ever heard any leader say, except for Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who say ridiculous things like this every day. Bibi has become them! There is no longer any difference between him and the super-extremists in this government. He sees no end to this war, no matter what the heads of the IDF say, or what former heads of the IDF and the other security services say.
He no longer listens to reason from anyone at any time any more. Like his friend, Mr. Trump, he has become a psychopath, which I recently read is defined in the following way: “a person with a personality disorder indicated by a pattern of lying, manipulating, glibness, exploiting, arrogance, delusions of grandeur, low self-control, disregard for morality, lack of acceptance of responsibility, callousness, and lack of empathy and remorse.” This is an exact description of both Trump and Netanyahu (and Putin, Orban and others).
Bibi, who has shown absolutely no empathy for the hostages and their families, will unfortunately not likely heed the words of Rachel Goldberg-Polin or the millions of other Israelis and people of goodwill from around the world who support her and oppose his policies. Like the biblical Pharoah, he has totally hardened his heart!
But we –the overwhelming majority of the citizens of Israel, as well as the majority of leaders of the free world and their citizens—will not give up the struggle. We will continue to raise our voices loud and clear and say ENOUGH, HALAS, MASPIK!!! This is exactly over a million Israelis did yesterday, on Sunday, August 17th, in the huge general strike and in protests all over Israel. The messages of the growing anti-war movement here were loud and clear: to catalyze the government to end this war, to stop the starvation and the vengeance in Gaza, bring all the hostages home and reach a diplomatic agreement.
We have had enough of killing of innocent civilians in Gaza, of soldiers serving long periods of time in this futile war, getting injured physically and mentally and dying in vain. We are tired of the lies and spins that we have been told far too many times that “total victory” is very close, that Hamas must be totally destroyed, that we are not starving anyone, that diplomacy is surrender, that we will not re-occupy Gaza (when that is what is happening), that we will not rule 2 million Palestinians militarily or civilly in Gaza, which would create a huge burden for Israeli soldiers and for the Israeli taxpayer, that the government is not planning to re-establish Jewish settlements in Gaza, even though many ministers in this government and many members of the Knesset openly support this irresponsible and dangerous policy, that anyone who opposes his policies is a traitor or a leftist or a defeatist, that this war is morally justified (which it was at the beginning but no longer is).
Enough, Halas, Maspik!! It is time for this war to end, for the hostages to come home, for the starvation to stop and for diplomacy to replace violence.
