Ethnic Cleansing in… Yemen

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I’m still tryna formulate my thoughts on where there is and there isn’t ethnic cleansing in Israel but while that’s all percolating….

Did you know there’s just one Jewish person left in Yemen and he is imprisoned by the same Houthis of recent missile-firing and boat-attacking note…

The same Houthis whose official motto is “cursed are the Jews” and who drove out the remaining Jewish people of Yemen over the past few years in an extended campaign of… ethnic cleansing.

Welcome to the Middle East…

(And we haven’t even mentioned 1948 or 1956.)

Thoughts on the Present – and the Future

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Two thoughts for you as the early ground operations are underway in the Gaza strip, after three weeks of continuous airstrikes against military targets embedded in a densely populated civilian area.

Two thoughts. One about the present and one about the future.

Right now I see so many friends and influencers calling for a ceasefire.

Every time I read another call for a ceasefire, my heart leaps – yes, that’s what I want too, an end to all this death, my God yes just stop it now.

Every time.

I don’t want revenge and I don’t want blood – my heart wants peace, now. My heart calls for a ceasefire.

And then my brain kicks in.

A ceasefire? my brain asks, With whom?

The group that broke the last fifteen ceasefires? Most recently with an on-brand genocidal pogrom?

What would they do with another ceasefire? Another genocidal pogrom?

My heart wants a ceasefire but my brain can’t quite make the pieces fit. What is the basis for the ceasefire?

Have the hostages been returned? Have the rockets stopped? Has Hamas renounced genocide?

My brain has questions my heart can’t answer.

Now for tomorrow.

We will win this war.

Hamas will be gone, as a political and militant entity. A new security regime will prevail in the Gaza strip, as the Israeli politburo puts it.

The day will come when we can safely end the siege of Gaza – and we should.

The day will come when we will have the choice to recognize a free and independent Gaza – and we should.

Yes, right now we need to take out Hamas, and yes (due to the political corner into which we’ve painted ourselves) the only effective means to do that right now is with war.

But for over a decade we’ve basically bombed the sh*t out of 2 million Gazans, the majority of whom never supported Hamas.

For decades more we’ve treated Palestinians within our state (let alone the West Bank) as less than citizens deserve.

The day will come when it’s time to give Palestinians a New Deal – and we should.

We need to focus on the present but we can’t lose sight of the future.

Hamas and My Daughter Cannot Coexist

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Hamas and my Daughter

can not

Coexist

because one of them

wants to

live

a full life

free and happy as a dove

loving

singing

dancing

wants to

dream

big dreams

enormous dreams

and make all of them

come true

with her own two hands

wants to play with

Friends

games in hebrew english arabic

a flower of Jerusalem

growing

deep roots in shared soil

deep laughs in shared breath

wants to be kind

just that

to live life being kind

kind to people on two legs

kind to people on four

kind to herself

knowing that is its own blessing

while the other one

wants her to die

a child,

guilty of the age old

Crime

of living while Jewish

Hamas: A Recap

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In 2006 Hamas “won” the Gazan elections with less than 50% of the vote. The next year they literally eliminated their political rivals in Gaza, the Fatah party, and have not held elections since.

For 17 years Hamas has held an unwilling population hostage – taken their land, their money, and their children – and used them as cannon fodder and human shields.

For 17 years Hamas has taken hundreds of millions of dollars and instead of spending it on Gazans, has trained and armed a gang of some 50,000 thugs.

For 17 years Hamas has played the victim to the foreign press while silencing the voices of Gaza.

Hamas does not represent Gaza, Palestine, Arabs, or Islam.

Hamas is not a legitimate ruling party and has unequivocally demonstrated its disregard for human rights and international law.

Hamas has nothing to offer Gaza.

But how do you get rid of Hamas? A criminal organization holding an entire population hostage?

How do you excise the tumor without destroying the health of the body?

I don’t know – no one I know personally does – and my sense is that we are all grappling with that question on some level, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Because whatever happens over the coming weeks, it wasn’t chosen by the children of Gaza.

“But Israel”

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I am so tired of seeing “But Israel” in comments.

But Israel doesn’t go in and shoot everyone in sight.

But Israel doesn’t make videos celebrating kidnapping children.

There is no comparison between Israel and Hamas, or between the fighters for one side and the fighters for the other.

One day all (remaining) Palestinians will be free and we’ll live side by side as fully equal citizens with all the rights.

But it’s clear that Hamas will have to be fully eliminated first.

Any hope of Hamas leading Gazans to freedom ended yesterday.

A free Palestine will come but it will be built on the smoking ruins of Hamas.”

Sinwar Will Soon Meet Our Rifles

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“Sinwar will soon meet our rifles” – Gallant

No.

This is not the way.

What we need is not an endless cycle of vengeance killings.

Not more death for death.

What we need – what all of us need to begin moving on from this mess towards a better security and political situation for everyone – is to capture the m*****f*****, try his @$$ in the world’s most public trial (Nuremberg 2.0), and lock him in solitary confinement for the rest of his natural life. No parole, no exchange, no release, no brain surgery. No aspirin. No contact with anyone but Israeli prison wardens for the rest of his miserable misspent life.

This was my first thought on hearing Gallant’s remark:

No, we don’t need just another death in battle, making a martyr of a madman.

We need law and order in our country.

We need vindication in the world arena.

We need justice for everyone who suffered because of Sinwar’s sociopathic evil.

Let Sinwar be globally exposed for the war criminal he is, let him see the ultimate triumph of Israeli society over Hamas’s genocidal barbarism, let him rot into obscurity as a despised failure.