Hi! You may be a new friend of mine. While I really like sharing poems and pictures of my baby daughter, and while I also hope to work together to help build the WordPress community in Israel, we’re living in interesting times, so you may have noticed a certain political tinge to some of my posts.
Don’t worry, I promise you no rants.
But I thought a little Q and A might benefit the newcomers in getting situated, and remind the oldtimers that things are more complicated than pop media would have you think.
Q “Why don’t you support the war?”
A Because I don’t trust Bibi to wage it morally, strategically, or effectively. Let alone the current POTUS.
Q “Don’t you want the missiles to stop?”
A Yes but I’m not willing to pay any price for safety; there are reasonable, moral limits to what I am willing to support in exchange for my own skin. While I trust the moral conscience of the majority of IDF soldiers, I think they are constrained and compromised by leadership, policies, and a system that in too many cases positions them to violate those limits. Also, I have no guarantee that even if I sold my soul to pay the price, I’d actually be safe.
Q “But they killed Khameini, doesn’t that matter?”
A I’m glad that wicked man can’t order any more attacks on innocent people but I would have rather he faced justice in an Iranian court of law.
Q “What about Hezbollah?”
A Hezbollah is better armed, trained, and funded than Hamas was on Oct 6. They have survived decades of war with Israel. Despite the pager attack (which btw was not nearly as clean as it was championed to be, many innocents were harmed), Hezbollah is still sending missiles against Israelis (and Palestinians). And the week before Bibi ordered the attack on Tehran, the IRGC took over all Hezbollah units, so now they’re all operating under Khameinist annihilation/suicide orders. They need to be addressed with serious, effective strategy in coordination with Lebanese forces and European allies, not doubling down on a demonstrably failed approach with a massive citizen evacuation order that’s producing its own refugee crisis as we speak. I have close friends who served and are serving in Lebanon, they – not to say nothing of the Israeli and Palestinian residents of the north, let alone the residents of southern Lebanon – deserve better than the status quo.
Q “So you don’t support Israel?”
A I support Israelis. I support Palestinians and Iranians and the Lebanese, too. I support everyone trying to make a good life for their kids and be a good neighbor and contribute something of value to the human species. I think our state is far from perfect, with a history and structural problems that we have not but desperately need to reckon with, and I think this government is criminal and incompetent. But every Saturday night at habdala I pray for the success of this state – that it become a true flowering of the Zionist dream, a country of justice, law, and holy order, a safe haven for all who need it, an integral and integrated part of the regional and human tapestry of spiritual enlightenment and material abundance.
Hope that helps.