Save the Children

If your child and your neighbor’s child were drowning, who would you save? Easy, right?

What comes next is not easy and not P.C. It is a comparison of two opposing cultures topped off with a very obvious, heartfelt value judgement. I am writing to decent people who are pained by the scenes of Gazan suffering, who believe Israel is responsible for it, or that if Israel somehow found a way to compromise, to turn the other cheek, to lay down its arms, both peoples would be able to survive, perhaps in peace.

I, on the other hand, believe–with too much supporting evidence—that this would be suicidal for Israel and would hasten the success of Gaza/Hamas/Hezbollah/Palestine/Iran in their oft stated single objective, their entire raison d’etre, of crushing the Israeli state and murdering all those who dwell within it.

To examine this issue, I ask you to consider this: What if your child is Israeli and your neighbor’s is Gazan? What if you are perceived as white and powerful and they are perceived as brown and “powerless?” Does the “virtue” of powerlessness or brownness change the fundamental rules of human decency? Given your presumable white[1] Israeli-Jewishness (the latter being no small factor here) and your presumed power, are you expected to sacrifice your child in order to save the presumably powerless brown “other?

For too many people around the world, the answer appears to be affirmative. Soldiers of the Israel Defense Force, who are also Israel’s children, are routinely expected to put themselves in harm’s way to preserve Gazan life. The nation of Israel is expected to stop defending itself or do so less aggressively to preserve the lives of their enemies.

Who’s Powerless?

The degree of destruction Hamas wrought upon Israel as well as Gaza itself strongly argues that its powerlessness is a myth. When Israel evacuated Gaza in an ill-fated attempt at peace,  Gazans could have taken over the businesses and used structures left by Israelis to lay the foundations for a similarly prosperous life, instead, they  immediately demolished everything.

This choice was taken because it is entirely congruent with Hamas’s plans for the future of Gaza.

Similarly, instead of using tens of billions of dollars that were donated to Gaza to create a better life for its people, the money was used buy weapons and build  tunnels. In accordance with its Charter, Hamas would attack, capture and murder Israelis, dragging them—dead or alive—into the tunnels. People with billions of dollars at their disposal are not powerless.

Hamas knew the world would blame Israel. That was the point. They spent their billions  developing a fortress of human shields. And despite this, the world sees Gazans as victims of Israel, not of Hamas!

Child Victims

How does Gaza treat its own children? See for yourself:

On October 7, Gazan children were taken into the Israeli villages, still under siege, and encouraged to engage in looting.  The possibility that these children could be traumatized by witnessing their fathers and brothers raping, burning and butchering other human beings was not taken into account. Was any consideration given to the possibility that these children might be hit by gunfire? Apparently not.

I argue that this is a modern version of child sacrifice, a religious practice rejected by ancient Israelites in Biblical time.

How has Hamas treated Israeli children? The events of October 7 tell all we need to know. Israelis have forensic evidence that the red haired Bibas children, captured at ages 4 and nine months, were strangled by human hands. In addition forty-two Israeli children, several as young as 3, were taken into Gaza as hostages. Children found in Israeli villages were burned to death in their homes or shelters, some were decapitated or mutilated, some were shot at close range.

What other proof is needed of the sincerity of Israel’s enemies’ threats? Why is it so impossible for decent people, who are also aware of these events, to realize that Israel cannot risk trusting these “neighbors?”

Rules of Engagement-They vary

Israel has been expected to exhibit an inhuman degree of restraint. Put simply, if any nation other than Israel had been subjected to Hamas’s marauding hordes, that nation would have been expected to mobilize every power at its disposal to demolish its enemy as America did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the Allies did to Hamburg and Dresden.

Consider Ukraine’s war with Russia. Like Israel, Ukraine has been invaded by a vicious army with little regard for human life. Do we believe Russian civilians have not been victims of Ukraine’s retaliation against Russia, just as Ukrainian civilians have died at Russian hands? War is war and people get killed. Is anyone demanding that Ukraine’s strikes must be strictly “surgical,” as it battles to defend its homeland? Or that it provide Russia with food and medical supplies, or alerts about where the civilian population should move to remain out of harm’s way? There are currently 19 active wars in the world, but Israel is judged by different rules from all of them.

And yet, according to experts who study urban warfare, Israel has been exemplary. The IDF receives high marks for its soldiers’ conduct and for civilian harm mitigation measures in Gaza. In fact, Israel set new standards given the complexity of the battlefield and is being studied for “strictly abiding by international law while combatting a deeply embedded adversary.”

Facts/Schmacts

Facts don’t seem to matter. Images of Gaza’s physical and human destruction were broadcast daily to the world as proof of Israel’s blood lust, while scenes of Israeli suffering, (and its admirable resilience) are all but ignored. The fact that Israel protected its population is used as “proof” of Gaza’s “virtue” (victimhood) and Israel’s lack thereof.

Isn’t it absurd to expect Israelis or Jews or anyone to sacrifice themselves and their own children to spare someone else’s?

Throughout Jewish history, since the fall of the Second Temple and the Roman conquest two thousand years ago, Jews have been persecuted by every country in the Diaspora. Our history is one of other people threatening to kill us and then killing us.

In the Middle East, especially, turning the other cheek is an invitation to be slaughtered. When they say they want to kill you, they really, really mean it.

References upon request

[1] Only Ashkenazi-European-Jews are “white.” It is estimated that more than half of Israeli Jews have North African and/or Arabic origins [Yemen, Morocco, Iraq, Turkey etc.]