· Isn’t it amazing how there is a humanitarian crisis with no food or medical supplies in Gaza? Isn’t it equally amazing that there are thousands of rockets ready to be fired at Israel? If the Palestinians went to as much effort into ‘smuggling’ food in as they do rockets, the situation would be a lot different. Maybe they haven’t realised that food is cheaper, more portable and less likely to be stopped. Maybe they need reminding that it will do a thousand times more to help the Palestinians than weapons ever will. Maybe they just need reminding and now it’ll stop. Maybe but I don’t think so.
· You can’t help but get the impression that the timing of the offensive was designed with the coming election in mind. The Lebanon War was a ‘flop’, the disengagement led to more attacks against Israel, Kadima’s negotiations with the PA are going nowhere and it seems that Livni is incapable of defending Israel. A whitewash in favour of Netanyahu looms and oh look.... a full-scale assault on the Palestinians. Politicians’ motives are never entirely pure, but to play with lives (on both sides) for such a shallow reason is indefensible. Not to say that that is the reason but....
· There was a beautiful moment at Limmud when we held a one-minute silence for the situation in Gaza and the Palestinians that have lost their lives, followed by a rousing rendition of Hatikvah (Israeli national anthem). If everyone had such pride in their country coupled with empathy of the ‘other’ we would not be in such a mess.
Of course, Palestinians might say this is a phoney ‘show’ of emotion orchestrated by the oppressors. “They can afford such pretence”. Well I say, let them think that. It may even be true but the Palestinians don’t even have the desire to fake it! They seem to have given up entirely on such notions as justice, compassion and the innate morality of certain actions. There doesn’t seem to be any protest to Hamas’ claim that Jews everywhere have given up their right to live.
· The ‘invasion’ (so people have called it) seems to have got just as much ire as that of bombing. As I said on my previous post, I found the bombing to be morally outrageous but as for a ground operation I am less unhappy. Of course, if the operation involves certain tactics then I am just as unhappy. If mortars are fired in such a way that they know it to take innocent lives with the guilty, then there is no moral difference. However, a ground operation has the potential to be far more targeted and far more accurate. Bombings in densely crowded areas will always kill civilians no matter how targeted; going in by foot should allow them to target specific things.
· I don’t know whether to be proud or sick when I see Israeli soldiers by their tanks donning tallit and tefillin. A Kiddush Hashem or a Chillul Hashem? Of course, the secular world and the Christian world would like to see religion confined to Church and the inner sanctum of the heart. Religious people should be saintly, spend their days in monkly solitude or on the parish green and not dirty their hands with worldly affairs. “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, Render to G-d what is G-d’s”. This is a view of religion I reject entirely. If it is not concerned with real life, then it is impotent. Plus you have to bear in mind that regardless of the relation between religion and the army, these men are commanded to put on such garments. Yet... there can be nothing more dangerous than mixing religious zeal and deadly weapons.
· It could be argued that Israel treats Palestinian lives very cheaply and on the part of some, this is true. But at least they value the lives of their own civilians. This is more than can be said for the vast majority of Palestinian groups. It is Israel’s concern for its own that leads it release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for the dead bodies of Israeli ones. It is this which leads the name of each and every name of fallen Israeli soldier to be recited and remembered on Yom Hazikaron. It is this that leads us to campaign on behalf of MIA soldiers decades on.
This is in sharp contrast to Palestinian children’s TV that implores people to grow up martyrs. In sharp contrast to mothers who allow their children to be suicide bombers. In sharp contrast to terrorist groups who use civilians as human shields. In sharp contrast to groups who prevent their injured civilians gaining treatment in other countries. For Palestinian terrorists, there is only one thing better than Israeli deaths: dead Palestinians.
· I get worried by the ‘wavering’ of my moral sense. What, straight after I heard the news, was so certain is no longer. What was so emphatic when I wrote my post is now just a theoretical position I hold. What kept me up at night because of its outrageousness seems ‘not so bad’. Yes, I hold that what Israel did was wrong, but not so wrong. I’m influenced by the fact that there is evidence the bombs were targeted, I am swayed by the deaths of Israeli civilians, I have taken in that the vast majority of Palestinians that died were terrorists and I am assuaged by the very justification I fought so hard against, “What else can we do?”
But the Palestinian civilians that died weren’t only “20-25%” of overall deaths, they weren’t part of the “grand scheme of things”, there is no comfort for a family who knows that their daughter has died accidentally as part of a targeted attack. THEY ARE REAL PEOPLE. Yet, I fall into the numbers game.
As I write this I am swelling up with tears. Lest you think that shows that I care, or that they are part of a morally nuanced position, let me assure you they are purely selfish. They are a detestation of my moral impotence and my inability to see clearly. What good is a morally nuanced position anyway? Who does it help? I couldn’t with any conscience join in a rally against the bombings knowing who I was marching with and what this would imply. I couldn’t with good conscience join in the Israeli propaganda. I can’t with good conscience do anything and that makes me upset.
MORE THOUGHTS TO COME BUT I'M TIRED...
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