Hasbara? Go explain Israel – Pt. 2
It’s tough enough to justify things to us. Go explain it to the world
Children and others clamor for food on July 22 in the so-called humanitarian area at Mawasi, in the southern Gaza Strip.
It’s bad enough when one seeks to explain to fellow citizens what Israel’s leadership is doing to us.
Coalition shenanigans aimed at keeping a certain man in power and out of jail, as right-wing extremists and ultra-Orthodox parasites exploit their new-found power and dictate policy, their goal being the fulfillment of messianic dreams and the perpetuation of a permanent welfare state for millions who choose poverty in the name of piety.
The cost?
Settler hooligans and their thuggish allies running wild in the West Bank, attacking Arabs and their property in what can only be described as pogroms. Worse yet, one of their two main political leaders controls the police, who are told to look the other way, while the other, an entirely unqualified finance minister (who probably had to have the idea of a spreadsheet explained), secretly and not-so-secretly funnels cash to expand the legally questionable network of Jewish settlements.
Widescale draft evasion by young and fit ultra-Orthodox men who feel it’s their prayers and Talmud study that are really protecting the country. Worse yet, their political doyens, many of them proud anti-Zionists, extort millions upon millions in government funds to perpetuate an entirely unproductive segment of society while crucial services such as education, health and welfare dry up.
Then there’s that war without end.
Israeli hostages rotting in Hamas tunnels as the country’s leadership plays whack a mole with determined Islamists. Soldiers pushed into and out of and then back into a coastal enclave for reasons known to few, as more and more of them come home in body bags or end up lying broken in hospital beds, their lives altered forever.
Society coming apart at the seams over wars and hostages and draft dodgers and policies aimed at taking the country toward dictatorship – as one man presides above it all, satisfied and smug at what he sees.
Where is the logic? Find someone who can successfully explain to us why all of this is happening, why it’s worthwhile. Then go and explain things to the world.
AS I PREVIOUSLY wrote, in years past, not everything Israel did could be justified, but most of it could be explained.
We live in a rough neighborhood, we’d say, where those around us openly proclaim their desire to destroy us. Israel is an ingathering of exiles, where Jews come together with varying backgrounds, languages, tastes and dreams that challenge social norms and modes of fairness. And we are the world’s only haven for Jews, who throughout history have lived – and all too often died – according to the whims of the societies where they found refuge after being conquered and exiled from their homeland two millennia ago.
If the world ever found a reason to treat us fairly, it usually was when we were victims. And then it was solely out of pity. But now we have a country. And an army to protect us. And the confidence that goes with this.
Until that confidence turns into arrogance.
Yes, on October 7, 2023, Hamas overran part of our southern border and butchered men, women and children, burned communities and looted property – and for good measure, dragged some 250 people back into the Gaza Strip to hold hostage.
It wasn’t only Hamas. Rank and file Gazans saw what was happening and poured across the border to join in the merriment. And when they returned home, thousands of other Gazans, many of them children, filled the streets with howls of delight, landing fists where they could and phlegm when they were out of reach.
Brutish. Crude. Ugly. Deadly. Entirely what we had come to expect. And our leaders were supposed to protect us from this!
Twenty-one months into what is essentially a war of revenge, Israel has broken Hamas as a structured fighting force. It is no secret that Hamas uses civilians as human shields. It even admits as much. But we use massive dumb bombs and D-9s to level entire blocks, calling the civilian dead collateral damage (while many right-wing Israeli pols with big mouths and tiny brains say they all had it coming anyway, so who cares).
We ourselves insist that we have the world’s most moral army. Yes, we issue evacuation warnings to local residents when we decide to go after Hamas holdouts. But for close to two years, we have been moving hundreds of thousands of people back and forth, creating so-called safe zones and humanitarian enclaves while making all sorts of excuses for why they’re starving and being shot at while scrambling for the little food that gets in.
There is open talk of population transfers and word that opinion polls show Gazans themselves want to leave. But who will take them? Somalia and its warlords? Libya and its ongoing and still deadly feud between the diehards in Tripoli and Benghazi?
If Gazans want to leave, it is for places like Canada and Sweden, Germany and New Zealand. Good luck with that. (And don’t even bring up Trump’s America, which has gone all-out goon in its fevered efforts to drive out immigrants, migrants and pretty much anyone who doesn’t quite look like the queen at the Wisconsin county fair.)
Israel allows only select journalists into Gaza, and only then to see what the army wants them to see. Yet locals with video cameras and cell phones supply the world media with footage of their own. It isn’t pretty, and those abroad who haven’t yet lost their patience with Israel are beginning to experience falling thresholds for what they are and aren’t willing to put up with.
I KNOW. THEY’RE all “antisemites”. Just about everyone in our government says so, starting with the man at the top. The one on trial for alleged corruption. The one who will do anything to avoid jail. The one who needs just a bit more time to salvage his tattered reputation for the history books.
We’re just trying to finish off Hamas, they say, and then up pop those pesky terrorists again! We’re not making them pop up! They do it on their own! Then they run and hide behind civilians! How can we not level entire neighborhoods! We seek absolute victory!
If you don’t accept this, they go on, you are an antisemite. If you complain about our policies, you are an antisemite. If you have a soft spot for Palestinians, then you must love Hamas. Which makes you an antisemite.
We are hemorrhaging allies fast. We have lost an entire generation that prefers to get its “news” from TikTok – and soon, they will be the ones running their countries.
This is a public relations disaster that cannot be fixed by all the crisis-managers in the world. We have run out of reasons. We have run out of explanations. And if we think Trump will come to our rescue, his America First base has had it with us, too.
If we can’t change direction simply because it’s the right thing to do, we’ll soon be on our own. We have an army but it’s short on manpower, and the better educated and more affluent among us have already started leaving. The things that give this country strength can no longer be relied upon.
Talk of antisemitism will not be of much help. A drastic change in policies will. Starting with this goddamn war.
