And now for something completely different . . .
They Made Us Evil: Telling The Truth In A Time Of Deceit
Throughout this horrible war Hamas and the Houthis have continued to fire rockets at Israel, notwithstanding the fact that there was and is no conventional military reason for doing so. The rockets inflict only minimal damage; while generating anxiety and inconvenience, they represent no real risk to Israel’s security or survival. Yet, feckless and powerless, the terrorists persevered, even while the devastation in Gaza mounted.
Why? The destruction of a few buildings and the launch of hundreds of intercepted or ineffectual rockets served only to announce, if anyone cared, that their war crimes against civilians persisted. Similarly, they persist in holding innocent hostages, a war crime, and in launching military operations from hospitals.
Why? Because the military objective of Hamas (Iran) is unconventional, almost radical in its ingenious cruelty and inspired barbarity. The rockets continue to fly and innocent hostages are kidnapped and held–so that Israel will be compelled to respond. Hamas knows that Israel can not appear paralyzed in the face of ongoing assault against its land and people. It can not appear impotent. It must fight back.
The more Israel responds, the more Gazan civilians die. That is by design; it is the vile primary objective of Hamas, and has been so almost from the very start of this brutal and savage campaign.
Place military targets among civilians, guaranteeing civilian casualties. Force Israel to respond. Let the world react in revulsion. Make it appear that there is no moral distinction between attacker and victim, between Hamas and Israel. Disseminate the images of injured and dead children to make Israel appear callous and vicious.
Hamas may be the only combatant in the history of war to desire, promote, and benefit from the death of its own people.
It has managed this diabolical, horribly effective campaign to make the world believe a lie: Israel is equivalent to or worse than Nazi Germany.
The instructions given to the original terrorists were among the most abhorrent and loathsome in the annals of warfare. Commit war crimes. Document them in real time. Show the world the most depraved violence possible, even against defenseless babies. Taunt, torture, and rape girls and women. Make movies of yourselves committing these obscene atrocities. Disseminate photos and videos for the world to witness.
Even the Nazis displayed the human impulse to hide and cover up their actions. But for Hamas, exhibitionist barbarism was a strategy.
Hamas’s goal was to force Israel into a military response that would deprive it of any perceived moral advantage, inflame the Arab world, and alienate the civilized world. They knew that Arab casualties would prompt the world to forget how the cycle started. Only the Jews would recall or speak of October 7. The world, the UN, the “humanitarian” NGOs would justify the contemptible behavior of Hamas and vilify only the response of Israel. The campuses had been conditioned for decades and the press is hard-wired to blame the Jews.
So . . . build the most extensive military tunnel network in history and put it under hospitals, mosques, and civilian residences. The world will blame the Jews when they seek to protect themselves. Explain that occupiers and colonists can never be victims. Steal humanitarian aid. The world will blame the Jews for the hungry children. Keep sending rockets into civilian centers from launchers adjacent to mosques, schools, and residential neighborhoods. Israel will respond. Inshallah, Arab children will die.
Mission accomplished.
By any means necessary. No one has ever implemented that disgusting policy with greater effect.
There is a phrase in the Haggadah, taken from the Bible–vayarehu otanu hamitzrim (Deuteronomy 26:6)–the Egyptians committed evil things against us. The appropriate way to say that would be vayarehu lanu hamitzrim. The Netziv notes that by using the word “otanu” instead of “lanu” the Torah communicates an entirely different concept: “the Egyptians demonized us, made us [appear] evil.” It is not merely that they did evil things to us, but they rendered us as evil, they characterized us as evil, they depicted us as evil.
The Netziv suggests that before the cultured Egyptians could bring themselves to enslave, torture and murder the Jews, they had to first render the Jews subhuman. The Nazis did the same, using dehumanizing portrayals of Jews to make their elimination seem justifiable, even proper. Jews were characterized as subhuman animals–rats, cockroaches, vultures–and sinister conspirators plotting to destroy Germany. Hitler and Goebbels claimed that Jews had launched a war of extermination against Germany, thus legitimizing retaliation as self-defense.
Once you dehumanize a people, it is easier to treat them in inhumane ways, easier to annihilate them.
Hamas has learned its lesson well, but goes a step farther than even the Egyptians and the Nazis. Not only do they label us as subhuman, but they accuse us of apartheid and genocide. By labeling Jews as Zionists–colonialists and occupiers–they justify any barbaric behavior. Then they go one disgusting, stomach-wrenching step further. They force us into actions that appear evil by compelling us to respond to attacks, with inevitably tragic and ugly consequences, and then manipulate a compliant press to depict our actions as inhumane.
Ayatollah Khamenei–that herald of human rights–watched the walkout at the UN and described Israel as “the most despised and isolated regime in the world.” Consider the source.
To achieve its goal, Hamas was prepared, even eager, to sacrifice their children. It created a situation where the only Israeli alternative to surrender and stasis was a military response that inevitably resulted in civilian casualties.
That was not our goal; that was their goal. That has been their goal from the start. They want their own people to suffer and die. That is why they blocked civilians from escaping North Gaza. That is why they keep firing rockets. That is why they hijack humanitarian aid. If anyone is committing genocide against the Gazan population, it is Hamas.
The Egyptians did not invite or welcome the plagues. The Nazis did not intentionally provoke and welcome the fire-bombing of Dresden. Only Hamas promotes and embraces the suffering of its own people as a weapon.
We know this, but are unable to avoid the trap. The jury is predisposed to judge us harshly. How do we preserve our humanity in the face of the most ruthless of enemies, without surrender and without abandoning the goal of defeating them? Only with steadfast faith in the integrity of our cause and trust in our leaders and our brave and decent soldiers.
There can be no forgiveness for those who launched this smear campaign to render us evil, justifying every retaliatory initiative against us, from boycott to extermination, and those who, out of ignorance, apathy, cowardice, or malice, accepted it. Characterizing us as evil vindicates, legitimizes, and rationalizes every attempt to harm us. And that is their goal–by defaming us, to make the elimination of Jews and Israel not only possible, but praiseworthy.
Accusations of genocide are not easily deflected, especially when the malign forces of the UN agencies and Amnesty International conspire to hide the truth. Denials, justifications, and rationalizations instantly vaporize.
Netanyahu’s speech at the UN was a noble effort to respond. His act may have gotten old, but his message resonates with the steadfastness of a Churchill. He believes in Israel and he defends Israel, making no apology for its will and efforts to survive. “In a place where there are no men [i.e., the UN General Assembly], strive to be a man.”
The only way to deflect such a horrible charge is to render it unthinkable, to condition the audience to say, quite correctly, “They would never do that; that is not who they are.” The world must understand. We would never do such a thing. That is not who we are. We must flatly and persuasively reject genocide claims by demonstrating that only one side in this war has the objective of annihilating its enemy.
Our war is with Hamas, which massacres civilians and openly calls for killing Jews. Military actions and counter-terrorism aimed at Hamas and not Palestinians as a group do not satisfy any legal definition of genocide. Hamas’ military is an appropriate target, wherever they choose to situate themselves.
Accusing Jews of genocide is a grotesque distortion, and we must expend whatever resources are necessary to dispel it. At the very least, information on the hundreds of millions of dollars Israel spends on humanitarian aid, the medical evacuations and humanitarian corridors, and the additional risks to which it subjects its soldiers to minimize harm to civilians need to be widely, persuasively, and effectively spread. Demonstrations in support of Israel and focusing on Hamas’s use of human shields and rocket fire from civilian areas must be promoted throughout the free world.
We are waging an uphill battle against an implacable enemy with unlimited resources. We must mount an equally robust defense–legally, diplomatically, rhetorically. We have been left with no alternative.
Just as the plans of the Egyptians and the Nazis came to nought, so too, God willing, will this most recent attempt to render us as evil. But it will take a massive educational effort and an enormous amount of resources to resist and defeat the propaganda war against us. They have raised an evil spectre and we must demonstrate it to be false, utilizing every method available.
Because it is false. And because we can not afford to lose this battle over who we are, over our own identity. We can never allow them to define us with their lies. “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
Be strong and courageous; do not fear or lose resolve.