Shalom Aleichem.

 

Shalom aleichem, Lisa.

Sorry about the late response to your reply to my string on Israel. I am in awe of your life experience. You had boots on the ground, and that helps so much to understand a situation this complex. I am glad that you, like so many Israeli citizens and diaspora Jews, are empathetic with the Palestinian plight. As we both know, this by no means implies a lack of empathy for the cause of Israel. I believe we see both reasons, and try to understand how to balance them.

 

Bibi Netanyahu is a cancer to all in the region. And yes to Catholics too, as they also long for the eternal hope that lives within Jerusalem’s walls. The irony is that “hope” is for peace, since long before the Leper King.

The next part of this response is the hardest to portray clearly. You see, I have this idea, perhaps excessively romantic, that armed conflicts should only involve armed opponents, leaving untouched (as much as possible) the unarmed, non-combatants.

In particular the children, the elderly, and women (I apologize if I sound sexist, but I was raised to try and be respectful of women, in ways that are, today, perhaps misinterpreted, or undervalued). It’s a sensitive issue because both Israelis and Palestinians are known for their excesses. And I know very well that most Palestinian extremists choose targets indiscriminately, while a large percentage of Israeli strikes try to be surgical.

I hate broad strokes. Painting all Palestinians as terrorists is as bad as claiming all Israelis are Zionists from hell. None of that is true. And here is where my romantic idealism gets the better of me. War implies sacrifice. Without sacrifice, war is a genocidal slaughterhouse. It’s not right to blow up a bus full of ordinary people to get two soldiers in a city corner, and It’s not right to send a missile into a building full of ordinary people to get two extremists.

We celebrate the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany on D-Day. We honor the fallen heroes that gave their lives on the beaches of Normandy. June 6, 1944. Yet we forget the 75,000 French civilians killed by the allied bombings that preceded the landings, setting the stage for the invasion. Even though the technology of the time was mediocre compared to today’s targeting systems, no one cared much about civilian casualties back then. It was part of war. It was necessary. Since then, the rules of engagement have changed. What the Russians are now doing in the Ukraine would be considered normal in 1944, but today those actions are considered war crimes. And rightly so.

To expand on a concept a character in “Crimson Tide” exposed, in an age of technology as advanced as ours, our true enemy is war itself. The reason being, we now possess the means to engage the enemy beyond the line of horizon, with zero human losses on the attacking side. This completely perverts the nature of war. War is no longer sacrifice, and by extension, war is now easy. Too easy.

Why would Hezbollah risk their lives to kill Israeli soldiers if they can destroy them by blowing up a cafe full of civilians? And why would the IDF risk soldiers to get terrorists if they can destroy them by doing a similar thing? There are no innocents. Israelis are all to blame for the misfortunes of the Palestinians, and Palestinians are all terror sympathizers.

So why bother sparing civilians when no one is innocent? But this is false on both sides. In this respect, “both sides” is not an absolute. It is an exception. That exception, however, is what the tabloids wish for. If an Israeli raid successfully kills a few terrorists with zero collateral damage, the news media mention it in a 30 second segment between 3 minute commercial breaks, or at the bottom of page 9. If, however, the attack is a bombing that kills indiscriminately, it’s breaking news at the top of the hour and front page news, as are other IDF mistakes, such as killing journalists and, yes, children.

On the other side, the Palestinian extremists are constantly “breaking news”, to the point no one cares anymore. They achieve banality by exhaustion. And there is always the underdog aspect, appealing to western audiences, reinforced by Israel’s mistakes. As for the religious fanaticism that threatens both Israel and the United States, we have no illusions. If unchecked, it will destroy us all. You have first hand knowledge of Ahavat Yisrael, so I will not presume to deny it exists, but my knowledge of human nature tells me that no matter which race, faith, nationality or political affiliation, humans need to constantly fight the demons inside them so the better angels prevail. And too many times that fight is lost. Or even attempted.

 

To acknowledge what I have stated on Threads before, I believe all organized religions are bad, in the sense that they facilitate the perversion of the human soul by virtue of the enlightened few who received the message of their God and set it on paper with their own, human, flawed words. But I do believe there are some, many, good religious people, who do good in spite of their religion’s dogmas. Or maybe by the redeeming of those absolutes through kind actions.
Be that as it may, Bibi is the inevitable consequence of 75 years of a country founded on religion.

 

It was only a matter of time until someone would try to turn it into a true, full fledged, religious state. We separate Religion from State. When we use “Church” to mean religion, we mistake it for Christianity, but no. Such is true for Islam and Judaism as well. Maybe it’s time to try something new. Time to truly give peace a chance, not in a song verse, but for real.

[finis]

 

Editorial Note:

This piece was originally posted on threads as a reply to Lisa Aronow.

That post has been preserved as a page on this blog: Achoti I . Ahavat Yisrael (link here)

Quick note:
This subject is a challenge for a few posts on a string. Reviewing it, I noticed how there are always things to add, points to clarify. I am worried about the rise of religious fanaticism in general, especially here. I carried that worry into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at my own peril, in the original string. And in this string I still didn’t say all I feel I should have said, but in this format it will have to do. I hope you will reflect on the points I chose to touch.

 

Note:

Comments on this blog are locked. This is but a reading platform linked to Threads.

If you wish to reply with your thoughts, please do so on the Threads post that references this opinion piece. Thank you for reading.