The Gaza Dilemma

My dear, dear friend, Miz Shoes, has written a post today on this subject. While I understand where she’s coming from, I have to respectfully disagree. I was just going to comment on her blog post, but then I realized that this was going to be far too lengthy for a simple comment.

I have to start this by reminding you that I’m Jewish. It says so right there at the top of this blog. My parents and much of their generation of my family are Holocaust survivors. I was raised, from Day One, with the absolute knowledge that no matter where my family was born, my real homeland is Israel. And Israel is always right. ->Sigh<-

Sometimes I wish I had at least 6 hands.

On the one hand, I understand the horror and sympathy when one sees pictures in the newspaper, online, and on TV of the injured and dying in Gaza, especially the children. Of the destruction and rubble, especially the schools and hospitals.

On the other hand, I know that Israel didn’t start this. I know that Hamas has been launching rockets into southern Israel on a daily basis for months, and Israel never fired a shot in retaliation. I wonder where were the photos of Israeli casualties and damage? Where was the indignation and outrage against Hamas? A terrorist organization. Whose modus operandii has always entailed hiding behind women and children. Who took the hospitals and schools that Israelis built and then turned over to the Palestinians when Gaza was ceded to them and turned them into arsenals and weapons manufacturing installations.

Where is the indignation of the good people of the Earth when it’s Jews getting bombed? The same place it was when the Nazis were tossing the Jews of Europe into concentration camps. Nowhere. Silence. Nada. And that includes American Jews.

I’m not a rabid Zionist. Israeli politics – and its policies – are far more volatile than ours, and in recent years I have disagreed more than I have agreed. I won’t argue the timing of Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, but I’ll ask you this:

Who else but Jews would actually telephone their individual targets the day before each respective military action to tell them that their apartment building (or hospital, or school, etc.) was going to be targeted the next day, to give them the opportunity to avoid becoming casualties? “Hello, Mrs. Ali? This is the Israeli military command. We have hard information that Mr. Mohammed in 3-G and his friends have been manufacturing RPG’s in his apartment and refuse to move the operation. We’ll be blowing up your building at 10:00 tomorrow morning, so you might want to think about getting out.” Seriously. Who else but Jews? Is Hamas giving the civilians in southern Israel the same courtesy? (Insert ironic laugh here)

So before anyone condemns Israel for going into Gaza to try to stop the attacks on its own citizens and for the bloodshed and destruction there, try to remember who the bad guys are. They’re the ones who have been provoking this confrontation for months and deliberately position themselves and their rocket launchers in residential neighborhoods. And schools. And use the helpless as their shields.