Gaza - as a bolt out of the blue?

Whatever you say about our politicians, their ability to play dumb*, coupled with their ability to point an accusing finger at somebody else are still up there with the best.

Recently, while desperately searching a way out of the Gaza stand-off, some of our ministers happened to find what looked to them a suitable scapegoat: out Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot. The soldier's soldier was suddenly blamed in the situation:

...one unnamed minister was quoted as saying, “In the final analysis, Eisenkot’s policy on responding [to Gaza violence] has failed and allowed things to deteriorate.”

Amazing, but it is not all:

Ministers used the meeting to lambast the IDF chief for allowing an Israeli “loss of sovereignty” on the border, and what they called the military’s insufficient action against the balloon launchers.

The sheer gall and stupidity of these attacks is mind-boggling. Blaming your gun for not jumping up and shooting your enemy? The very same people who are responsible for IDF and should decide, after interminable months of border violence, what to do, are accusing IDF in inaction?

To the honor of our illustrious minister of defense, whom I never suspected of overflow of any honor at all, he stood up in defense (no pun intended) of CoS.

It’s ridiculous that cabinet members are blaming the chief of staff for a policy they laid out. This crosses a red line, and it hurts national security.

Liberman's response has probably been strong enough, because lately, due to the general impotence and lack of ideas, our ministers have found another, even better, scapegoat.

According to the lightning theory that emerged Thursday, the projectiles were armed, ready and aimed at Beersheba and Gush Dan in case of an outbreak of violence with Israel when lightning struck in the area and sent them on their way.

Five bolts of lightning struck in the Gaza area around between 3:10 and 3:20 a.m. that morning, according to maps produced by Dr. Barry Lynn of the Weather-It-Is company and the Israel Total Lightning Network, which tracks lightning strikes.

Four of them touched down out at sea, but one struck within the Gaza Strip.

So now it is not Hamas and even not the so handy Gadi Eizenkot. It is He who sends the bolts out of the blue. To save the ministers' faces, which are already so covered by the proverbial eggs that it is difficult to see them.

What can I say? If it looks like bullshit, if it sounds like bullshit, if it smells like bullshit - it is probably a politician...

(*) Or being dumb, choose your preferred option.

And this is the way it rolls with Gaza...

I am really tired of the topic, nothing new to be added to or subtracted from it. So, purely for documentation purposes, here is a summary of the latest developments by Irina, and old friend from the good old blogging days.

***

A few words about the latest Hamas led attacks on Israel:

* They were completely unprovoked. The Arab media is only reporting images of Israeli counterattacks. Israel and US advocates are failing to engage Arab audience on the reality of what happened.

* Hamas was in the middle of reported negotiations over ceasefire terms - so it scored particularly high on the bad faith spectrum, also misleading the interlocutor Egypt.

* Israel, in retaliation, struck two Hamas tunnels. Those tunnels were a national security threat even before the 180 rockets Hamas fired at Israeli civilians. Why weren't they destroyed earlier when Israel clearly knew about them?

* Hamas was clearly trying to harm civilians. 180 rockets damaged homes, other types of private property, wounded civilians, sent pregnant women into labor, and gave PTSD to hundreds of children in Sderot and elsewhere. Yet Israeli retaliation included damaging infrastructure that should not have been there to begin with. What lesson will Hamas and the international community draw from this response?

* Hamas attacking Israeli civilians for no reason: NO condemnation from international community and press. Why are we to take the international press seriously when they are clearly ok with unprovoked unjustified terrorism? Hamas did not even provide reasoning for it, not even a totally fake veneer.

*Hamas staged an attack, then, before they could be punished too severely, claimed that they are now done and want peace. That's not how it works. You don't get to fire deadly parting shots and walk away unscathed with no legal or political repercussions. Or at least you shouldn't. How does a bunch of cowardly terrorists hiding in Turkey get to dictate terms of engagement and what happens next?

* The world then wonders how is it that Israelis and right wing Jews in the US and Europe are distrustful of Arabs. Well, where are the Arabs on questioning their media and on condemning Iran-funded Hamas on risking its own civilians and attacking women and children? How can you have trust and understanding from one side when the other doesn't even want to hear your concerns and dehumanizes you from the get go?

Forward, to a gentler and progressive Israel! Er... how?

Another stumbleupon situation that caused me to argue with another Jew. Two Jews arguing is usually a lose/lose game, but in spite of this we have never been able to desist. This time it was a Facebook encounter with Nathan Friedman Hersh*, who penned an article Israel's Only Policy on Gaza Is to Beat the Drums of War in (you guessed right) Haaretz.

Before I get to the fisking, let me say that I agree with the headline. It is nothing more and nothing less than a statement of fact. This is exactly what is going on for quite a few years. While the beating of the mentioned drums is never as belligerent as in the picture below, the threats aimed at Gazan leaders in particular and Hamas in general are an almost daily occurrence, so far never carried out to their full extent.

Let's start with the most important point: the article, heavy on criticism and denigration of the government, doesn't offer any solution to the hellishly difficult situation with Gaza. Nothing, zilch, gurnisht. One would have hoped that an article with such a bombastic headline and of such epic length will have at least two thirds of it dedicated to a solution that will stop the strife. But no, that hope fell flat.

There are two points the author offers to our attention as potential steps to a solution:

The first is a 2011 Israeli initiative designed to alleviate the blockade of Gaza with an offshore seaport. The plan would help improve the plummeting Gaza economy while also helping ensure security for Israel.

Another plan to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a solar energy field Israel would build, perhaps with Gulf funding, to supply Gaza with continuous electricity.

Let's assume that Hamas agrees to a seaport with our military oversight and that Hamas/Islamic Jihad rocket scientists don't destroy such an easy target as a solar energy field, in one of their fits of freedom fighting zeal (as they have repeatedly done with border crossings that provide their vital supplies, electricity, gas and water lines etc.). But what exactly is new with the proposal? I am getting tired to remind people to look at what was agreed with Palestinians toward the disengagement with Gaza, to recall the airport that was build and had to be destroyed, the seaport plan that had to be scrapped etc. We all know how it started and how it ended, don't we?

The other fault with the idea of improvement of Gazans' (indeed largely pitiful) conditions is the assumption that the leaders of Gaza care about their lot. So far, all we have seen shows the opposite. People who build their shelters under hospitals and launch rockets from schoolyards don't really care, that much is crystal clear. People who use all available metal to build Qassam rockets and the available cement to build tunnels (not the drainage ones, to our sorrow) don't really care.

Now to this short and unequivocal statement:

The blockade isn’t working.

I know what Nathan thinks about the purpose(s) of the blockade - he sees the blockade as a measure undertaken to break the spirit of the Hamas' freedom fighters:

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert initiated the blockade to strangle the Palestinians of Gaza until they voted out or overthrew their Hamas leaders...

But in fact blockade had one purpose only: to prevent smuggling of more and more sophisticated weapons that are so helpfully provided by Iran and other state actors unhappy with the mere fact of our existence. And it is working - not a full proof measure, but it works. Nothing more, nothing less.

The next curious paragraph:

Instead of listening to those voices, however, the government was satisfied to allow the army to set Israel’s policy toward Gaza. By yielding to the army the mandate to form solutions for Israel’s Gaza problem, government ministers avoid accountability.

What are the voices that should be listened to is totally hidden, the article so far doesn't mention any. The point about letting the army to set Israel's policy toward Gaza is factually wrong - it is the army and Shin Bet that support and push for an improvement of Gazans' living conditions. The point about accountability mentioned is quite absurd: there is a minister that is responsible and accountable for the military and there is a PM responsible for that minister. The buck doesn't stop an the CoS' table. Meaningless and confused.

And the next one, which is not only curious but rather stupid:

Ultimately, this lack of accountability not only led to thousands of innocent Palestinians killed...

Thousands (multiple) of innocent people - right, Nathan? - no matter how many of those killed were rank and file of Hamas troops? No more comments on this one.

As with the occupation of the West Bank, there is no alternative policy to the Gaza blockade. This is by design.

What kind of a dark design it is, remains unexplained in the rest of the article.

Well, the rest of the article I said. That rest is so long and rambling and so unconnected to the quandary of Gaza that I shall leave it alone. Aside of this curious ending:

Both Israelis and Palestinians deserve the possibility of freedom from occupation and blockade. Israelis deserve a government that can offer them long-term, multi-faceted protection from their enemies.

What is omitted from this passage is whether we deserve an end to the attempts to kill us in many different ways. Because the only thing Nathan mentions is "multi-faceted protection", whatever it means. Not peace.


(*) Nathan Friedman Hersh is a writer and the former managing director of Partners for Progressive Israel**. He has written for the New York Times and the Washington Post. He served in an unnamed IDF combat unit, as follows from the article discussed here and is studying medicine in US. Much to respect, even if his views are somewhat or sometimes confused and his responses when in a tight corner tend to "it is all hasbarah" knee-jerk reaction.

(**) A group that seems to be affiliated with (or very close to otherwise) Israeli Meretz party. Nothing to be ashamed of, some of my closest and dearest are members, but defines one's political allegiances quite well. Boycott the settlements' produce, strive for real peace etc.

Gaza again - it is coming

The four years preceding the last few months' events on the Gaza borders were relatively quiet. Yes, from time to time the silence was interrupted by a few rocket or grenade launches, but nothing too bad. However, ceasefire wasn't to the full satisfaction of the Gazan ruling clique, especially with the new blood in the top management:

That beast will never change its spots, that for sure. So here are some pictures and no predictions of the obvious and, seemingly, inevitable, soon to come.

Ashkelon 

Sderot

Sderot

Tel Aviv (training)

Fixing Gaza...Permanently

Rob Miller aka Joshuapundit has written a post that may appear controversial to many of its readers.
However, the level of desperation with the unending strife and unending hate from our Gazan neighbors lead Israelis increasingly thinking about this way of solving the problem. Not yet there, but thinking of it.

***

Since March 30th, much of the world's press and a chunk of the so-called 'international community' has been focusing on a series of what can only be called violent riots emanating from Gaza against Israel's border.

Read more »

Terry Glavin on Gaza - when your friends are worried about you

This post isn't easy for me to write. Not because I don't know what it should say, just because I don't have a solution to the problem raised by Terry Glavin in the article A moral dilemma on the Israel-Gaza border. It is much easier to respond to a relentless propaganda attack by your enemies than to a true concern about you, expressed by your true friend.

Read more »

Washington Post and complicity in murder

It is already several weeks since Hamas cold-bloodily and calculatingly started to encourage the attempts to breach the border fence. Hamas know perfectly well what the response will be and are consciously sending people to die.

Anyone who understands that and still finds it acceptable to encourage Hamas murderers - directly or by blaming Israel - is covering their hands in blood. That much is clear.

And now to the reason for this post. Here it is:

So - Israelis kill protesters?

Check you hands, WaPo, check your hands.

(Hat tip: James S. Oppenheim).

A Mediterranean tragicomedy in two acts and with no comments

Act1: Tragedy

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit confirmed on Monday that the Southern Command carried out a scheduled detonation aimed at destroying a new terrorist tunnel which was in the process of being built. The tunnel was located near the border fence with Gaza, near the South Gaza city of Khan Yunis.

IDF blows up Gaza attack tunnel, killing 7 Palestinians and wounding 12 inside
Most of the dead are Islamic Jihad members.

With an important proviso:

The explosion took place inside Israeli territory....

Intermezzo

Hamas response':

“The response to this massacre is to move forward toward the restoration of national unity because the enemy knows that our strength is in our unity and no people under occupation can win if they are not united,” Haniyeh said.

Hezbollah's response:

The organization denounced "Criminal Israeli belligerence and considers it a continuation to the Zionists' policy of aggression and strangulation towards the strip and its residents. This new Israeli aggression serves as testimony to the Israeli enemy's barbarous and criminal nature, as they continue harming the Palestinian people while some try and present them as friends of the Arabs."

Act2: Comedy

Islamic Jihad with its spoiler:

Senior Palestinian militant says detonated tunnel intended to kidnap Israelis
Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant reveals that terror tunnel IDF blew up Monday meant to 'free (PIJ) prisoners,' implying it was intended to kidnap Israelis to exchange for imprisoned terrorists; 'We have the right—blood for blood,' says militant.

And now to the cherry on the top:

Qatar: IDF bombing of Gaza attack tunnel violates Palestinian rights

The Qatari Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said the IDF’s destruction of a tunnel leading from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory earlier this week was a crime against the Palestinian people that hampered their legitimate rights.

Legitimate rights?

Oops, it was almost a comment...

Hat tip: Peter.

Mahmoud Al-Zahar: If we wanted to turn Gaza into Singapore...

Mahmoud Al-Zahar

In a somewhat surprising turn of events, our defense chief, Avigdor Liberman, offered* Gaza some significant and hitherto denied perks, such as an airport and a seaport, possibilities of employment in Israel etc. - all that in exchange for cessation of terror attacks of all kinds.

“The second that Hamas gives up on the [terror] tunnels and rockets, we will be the first to invest and build for them both a seaport and airport, as well as an industrial zone – both in Kerem Shalom and in Erez,” referring to border areas near crossing points into Israel.

“We could immediately create 40,000 jobs for Gaza residents, assuming Hamas gives up its [charter] article [calling for “the destruction of the State of Israel”, gives up on the tunnels, gives up on the rockets, and, of course – and this is the first and most important thing – returns the bodies of our soldiers and returns our civilians being held captive.”

Israeli help in possible turning Gaza into a local version of Singapore was mentioned.

The response* from Gaza came quite quickly.

Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar on Friday rejected Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s offer for an international airport, seaport, and industrial zone in Gaza if Hamas stops building terror tunnels into Israeli territory, stops firing rockets on southern Israel and returns the Israelis it is holding in Gaza.

He also rejected the idea of the return of the Israelis as a condition for the establishment of a seaport and airport. “This is a prisoner exchange. If we wanted to turn Gaza into Singapore, we would have done it ourselves. We do not need favors from anyone,” declared Zahar...

The most poignant part of the Hamas' bozo for me was, of course, "If we wanted to turn Gaza into Singapore, we would have done it ourselves." Indeed, hard to argue with it. Whatever Hams wants Hamas does. Instead of Mediterranean Singapore they have turned the Gaza strip in a militant hellhole with ruined infrastructure that gets flooded every single rainy day. Mentioning that for a small percentage of the money and effort that went into the network of tunnels Gaza could have had all the infrastructure they ever needed, will be useless. And that rebuilding the housing knocked off during the last war would have taken another small percentage... but they plan another war, so why bother indeed?

Of course, the non-existent infrastructure and destroyed houses could be used to Hamas' benefit and satisfaction. The former to support the water libel and the latter to impress the soft hearted (and soft brained) foreign donors by the Zionist inhumanity. And the donors' money goes into the tunnels and into the ammunition again, so no loss. And who is better as willing martyrdom recruiting material than the young unemployed Gazan males?

So why bother with building things when it is much easier to destroy, all in the name of killing these pesky Jews?

And this is the way it rolls.

P.S. Mahmoud Al-Zahar - the Godfather, so to say, of our ensign.

(*) Both Arutz 7 articles linked above checked: the Liberman's proposal against Hebrew Walla article and Mahmoud Al-Zahar's response against Arabic PalToday one.

This makes perfect sense to anyone, doesn't it?

I mean this:

The Salafi movement has claimed responsibility for a rocket launched into Israel on Wednesday night from the Gaza Strip. According to its statement, they fired in retaliation against the Hamas mass wave of arrests made against members of the Salafi organization in the Gaza Strip.

Just asking.

Gazan tunnels' collapse and the cause thereof

By now you know that the above means only one thing: the Elders' HQ issued a special permission to divulge some information hitherto unavailable to the media. It is called "scoop" in some circles.

As you might know, the brave warriors of Hamas are not a little discombobulated lately by the chain of inexplicable tunnel collapses and are scared to enter them:

Despite reports attributing the collapses to heavy rains, many Hamas members reportedly believe that Israel is causing the collapses. Hamas terrorists have seen Israel engaging in countermeasures against the terror tunnels. One Hamas member speculated that Israel has liquid explosives that can cause the tunnels to collapse, while another believed that Israel can cause localized earthquakes.

The media, of course, started its own circus of speculations, with headlines like these:

Israel Ramps Up Fight Against Tunnelers With ‘The Obstacle’

Israel Is Building a Secret Tunnel-Destroying Weapon

Some more shady sources are not only excelling in their headlines:

Israel builds ‘Underground Iron dome’ to tackle tunnels

but are even able to produce some visual evidence:

I don't know about you, but all I can see in this incomprehensible picture is something like a part of a grand piano and a row of huge green suppositories, accompanied by a row of huge green roller suitcases. Oh well.

Some even ascribe the collapses to the divine intervention:

Rabbi Shriki, deeply concerned about the growing threat to southern Israel, decided to call for divine intervention. About six weeks ago he began praying at the border fence, a dangerous area, asking God to help Israel. To his students, it is clear that Rabbi Shriki’s prayers have been answered.

The army doesn't argue with that opinion:

The question was put directly to Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai...:

Did the IDF have a hand in collapsing these tunnels, which pose a threat to Israel’s citizens?

“God knows,” the general replied.

Of course I am not in a position to argue with God's will (who is?), but it is known that the deity helps those who help themselves. And I am glad to tell you (with the above mentioned permission, of course) that this time it is not our rocket scientists and their mechanical contraptions that found a countermeasure to the digging itch that consumes our cousins in Hamas. It is the masters of creative transfiguration in another domain - that of biology. The ones who brought to the amazed world the Mossad* spy birds, the Mossad bloodthirsty sharks, the Mossad fighting dolphins, the Mossad giant piranha with its raging hunger for underwater cables, military vessels' hulls etc.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the latest and fiercest: the Mossad Giant Molerat (MGM):

A remark on the above: the human figure on top of MGM was photoshopped on the original frame, for the viewer to get the sense of MGM's size.

The beast, a result of genetic modification combined with advanced secret inter-breeding techniques that use animal psychology and amorous misdirection via mind control rays, is equipped with bulletproof self-greasing hide that allows it to move with speed underground and easily overcome any (futile) attempt of resistance, in extremely rare cases such resistance might be offered. So far no such cases were registered.

And another important nowadays detail: the MGM is vegan, in accordance with the environment protection guidelines and doesn't consume the Hamas diggers it happens to encounter and squash.

Meanwhile the cave-ins continue.

But now you know why.

(*) Frankly the addition of "Mossad" to the titles of the various zoo-warriors is no more than another misdirection. While the Mossad folks are useful and eager group, they are still mere understudies, vying for available junior positions in the Elders outfit, and they are aware of their true station.

Hamas MP Fathi Hammad: We Used Women and Children as Human Shields

Just watch.

Gaza Girls: Kill All the Jews hit

The Gaza Girls, a new  Palestinian girls band, is pleased to 

announce its new single, "Kill All the Jews.”

The Gaza Girls hope to inspire Muslim women across the globe

to express their individuality and say what they truly think!

The lead  singer of Gaza Girls is Tina Shahida, an American 

convert to Islam who felt inspired to start this band after 

Israel supposedly committed genocide in Gaza in the summer 

The way to win hearts and minds is through music!

William Schabas quit, but his work was already done

This is generally good but somewhat bitter news:

Why did William Schabas finally step down as chair of the UN inquiry on Gaza?

The latest revelation that he was paid by the PLO for legal advice in 2012 was the last straw, but the decision came in wake of a sustained campaign by UN Watch starting from the day of his appointment, which included videos of Schabas calling for the indictment of Israeli leaders, a formal UN Watch legal brief demanding his recusal that was submitted to the UN in an official filing, and UN Watch op-eds urging legal scholars to speak out against the absurd appointment of Schabas. Many did so.

Kudos to UN Watch and others who fought for the removal of the blighter.

However:

Canadian academic William Schabas was appointed last August by the head of the UN Human Rights Council to lead a three-member group looking into alleged war crimes during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.

In a letter to the commission, a copy of which was seen by Reuters on Monday, Schabas said he will resign immediately to prevent the issue from overshadowing the preparation of the report and its findings, which are due to be published in March.

In other words, the timing of the resignation is not to change the so called "findings", which were doubtlessly predetermined from the moment Mr Schabas was assigned to the post. And the farce of resignation will lend the document a bit of the desperately needed credibility.

Oh well...

And then Hamas states...

Check out this sequence of events (links for each headline provided)

Gaza militants reportedly open fire on southern Israel; IDF return fire
(11:16 , 12.24.14)

Palestinian reports: Heavy exchange of fire in south Gaza
(11:24 , 12.24.14)

Farmers near Gaza border fence ordered to halt work
(11:31 , 12.24.14)

Hamas: Head of recon unit in south Gaza killed in IDF gunfire exchange
(11:43 , 12.24.14)

And, for a logical conclusion:

Hamas: Israel playing with fire and bears full responsibility for repercussions
(12:09 , 12.24.14)

No comments.

Hamas appeared to admit...

After several months of blaming Israel, after proudly displaying to the world their killed and wounded (all "civilians", of course), supported by chorus of news outlets, Daily Mail itself included, we are starting to see some truth seeping through the layers of propaganda.

In a veiled confession that comes two weeks after the end of the Gaza war, a senior Hamas official said the group's fighters had no choice but to use residential areas from which to launch missiles into their neighbour's territory.

No choice indeed?  That from BBC:

Keep lying, "Hamas official". Keep swallowing this, all the rest...

Chris Gunness, UNRWA and mental meltdowns

Daniel Greenfield tells a fascinating story of the public self-humiliation by the UNRWA Spokesman in Gaza, Chris Gunness.

During the Hamas attacks on Israel, in which the UNRWA whose local staff is dominated by Hamas supporters was complicit, Chris Gunness had become its public face, appearing everywhere and even breaking down during one broadcast.

The breakdown mentioned above is well documented, becoming a popular item in Gaza-related articles:



Whether the breakdown was real of fake is not for me to say, besides I prefer to see the good in all people, unless the opposite is proved beyond any doubt.

Be it as it may, another breakdown by Mr Gunness, that one on Twitter, is documented very well. But there is no need to repeat what is described in the linked above article, so enjoy it. I shall just copypaste the tweet #13 from the sequence described:

There are a lot of good reasons for Chris Gunness to be so protective of his mothership. According to this article, about 1,2 billion good reasons (per year). UNRWA, an organization whose purpose is to enshrine and perpetuate the status of Palestinians as refugees, keeping them forever in temporary hovels they call refugee camps, instead of resettling them in permanent housing and taking care of their employment.

This at the time when UN declares that it has run out of funds for a million-and-a-half Syrian refugees?

Instead, UNRWA does its best to promote the belief of eventual return to the refugees' "ancestral" homes, in effect fueling the enmity and violence, which is probably not the goal the donors of all that money had in mind. Or, at least, I hope so.

And what happens when a Palestinian, Bassam Eid, a prominent human rights activist, dares to raise his voice and criticize the sacred cow Chris Gunness is so protective of? Saying, among other things:

“First, UNRWA needs to apologize for six decades of false promises,” Eid said. “Then it needs to concentrate on building permanent neighborhoods for the refugees, to remove them from the miserable situation that prevails in the refugee camps.”

What happens is simple and gruesome: Chris Gunness totally loses it, calling Bassam Eid "Jewish terror supporting staff" and creating the sorry picture of mental meltdown described in the Daniel Greenfield's article.

So what does it make of Chris Gunness - besides him being a pathetic Hamas' mouthpiece?

A mysterious headline

That one: US: Israel must play role in rebuilding Gaza

Hm... and I thought we already played a role this year...

Yaacov Lozowick's response to Mondoweiss

I hope the colleague Elder will not be angry, but I feel that this exceptional text should be repeated as frequently as possible and disseminated far and wide. So here it goes.

Lozowick's reply (published in full at Mondoweiss, to that blog's credit) is a very good synopsis of how Israelis think about themselves and this war, and why.

1. The Jews: It is an objective and implacable fact that Zionism is the largest and most significant Jewish project in at least 2,000 years, probably more. There are non-Jews who are Israeli citizens, there are Jews who intensely dislike Zionism, there are even a handful of anti-Zionist Jews in Israel. None of these facts can change the fundamental truth: in Zionism the Jews set out to re-create a national existence on the political playing field, in their ancestral homeland, and Israel is its expression, or outcome, or whatever you wish to call it. The fact that about 50% of the world’s Jews live in Israel strengthens this, (the proportion will soon tip over to more than 50%), and the fact that a majority of self-identifying Jews among the non-Israelis are Zionists, bolsters its strength, but doesn’t change it. You can’t have Jews pining for Israel over millennia and then going there, and not have it be the most important development in all those millennia.

You can rail against this for every remaining day of your life (until 120, as we Jews say), and it still won’t make the slightest difference, not even if you gather around you thousands or tens of thousands of like-minded American Jews. I think it was Abe Lincoln who once said in court something about the strength of a fart in a blizzard or some such. Live with it, Phil, because there’s nothing you can do to change it. Nothing.

(Apropos numbers: there were more Jews at the funeral of Max Steinberg last month, which I blogged a bit about, than all the committed Mondoweiss Jews together, and it was just one funeral).

2. Will defend themselves: Look, I know you’re convinced Israel is the once and always, perpetual aggressor. Of course this doesn’t explain how if we’re such aggressors the Palestinians keep multiplying and acquiring new assets such as the PA, parts of WB, all of Gaza, international standing etc etc. We must be really really bad at getting our job done. But as we both know, you and I can’t agree on the basic facts of this point, so let’s leave it as I said: A majority of the Jews worldwide and a total majority in Israel know we’re defending ourselves from enemies who would eagerly destroy us if they had the power, just as happened in the past. (Lots of non-Jews agree with us, by the way, either because we’ve got them under our thumb as you see it, or because it’s a simple fact, as I see it).

3. Even if it means killing: My PhD was about Nazis, and I know more about them than most people, so Godwin’s Law doesn’t apply to me. I can speak about Nazis as a scholar, not a demagogue. So here’s a thought experiment. Say that in order to end Nazism you had to kill 70,000 (not a few hundred) innocent, non-German civilians, Frenchmen, say. Would that be defensible? 70,000 dead French civilians, all innocent, many children, to end Nazism and as a by-product also end the Holocaust? Would that be moral? Permissible? Defendable in some later discussion? I ask because it’s not a thought experiment, it’s what the USA and UK did in 1944 as they went through France so as to destroy Nazism in Germany. Some goals, my friend, justify even horrible side effects, or collateral damage, or whatever you wish to call it. The reason being that the alternative, of allowing Nazism to stay in place, would have been far worse.

So If Israel has to chose between its own safety or refusing to kill any innocent bystanders whatsoever, we’ll choose to defend ourselves. You bet. Of course, we can seek shades of gray, alternatives of greater or lesser destruction, and we can argue about those and indeed, we must seek them and argue about them. But the basic framework remains solid. Our safety is to be assured even if there’s a price to it, even if some innocents die. As few as possible, hopefully, but the inevitably some, yes.

4. Just like every warring nation in history: Simple. Every single nation in human history, including in the 21st century, which finds itself at war, has one of two options regarding the moral dilemma in the preceding paragraph. Either it accepts that it will kill some inocents in order to protect ts goals, or it doesn’t care. The Syrian don’t care. ISIS certainly doesn’t care. The North Vietnamese probably didn’t care, so far as I can tell. I don’t think the North in your Civil War much cared. The US in WWII didn’t care at all when it came to German civilians in bombable towns. Hamas certainly doesn’t care – well, actually it does. It regrets it doesn’t manage to kill more Jews and Arabs who live among them.

Americans nowadays do care, as do the British, and a small handful of other mostly enlightened nations, Israel among them. Yet whenever they chose to go to war, they also accept they’ll be killing at least some innocent bystanders – and they then do. In Serbia in the 1990s, in Kuwait in the 1990s, in Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s, and yes, I’m sad to tell you, against ISIS in 2014 (and 2015? 2016? 2025?). No-one has existentially threatened the US since the 19th century, or maybe even ever. Which isn’t to say the US hasn’t fought just wars. But they were never about its very existence. And in every one of them they have killed civilians. Tragic, but true. And as long as the US continues to be at war, for whatever reasons, it will continue to kill civilians. As few as possible, one hopes, and one assumes they’ll take great efforts to limit the numbers, but to pretend you can go to war and not kill civilians is being willfully blind.

Israel, unlike the US, faces enemies who proudly broadcast their intention to destroy it, in the most basic meaning of the word “destroy”. So Israel must choose: will it defend itself even if thereby some number of innocent civilians die, or will it not defend itself, and thereby large numbers of its own civilians will die.

The answer is clear. Any other answer would be immoral.

So, that’s it. I know your methodology, and that of your fans. You’ll now turn to all sorts of other objections and whatabouttery. But I’ve responded to the questions as you posed them, and that’s enough. The whatabouttery is, by definition, about other matters.

The comments, of course, are exactly as Lozowick predicted.

More about that Izz ad-Din al-Qassam picture of martyrs

Something hidden in my memory kept nagging me since I have published the post with this picture:

Of course, pictures from Mecca with the mandatory bedsheets and happy pilgrims are a dime for a dozen. Take one, do some basic Photoshop job and here you are. But still... and then it clicked.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, right, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, second from right, P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas, third from right, and Fatah member Mohammed Dahlan.

Aha, now it's clear. So these are (probably) the bodies used for the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam shahids. And then, and oldish Russian joke surfaced in my memory:

A freshly sentenced for the first time young thief tells his new prison mates about his last girlfriend. "You should see her boobs, guys [shows with his hands the approximate dimensions on his own body]! You should see her buttocks [again using his hands to demonstrate the latter on himself]. You should see..."
Here he is interrupted by an old and experienced prisoner: "Listen, mate, don't show on yourself. This is a sure cause of bad luck..."

Dear martyrs-to-be of  Izz ad-Din al-Qassam: you may have chosen the right bodies to use for that demonstration. Or the wrong ones, depends how you look at that. Bad luck, remember.

So there.