war

The Enemy

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This should go without saying but given what I’m seeing shared these days (to be fair, after six months of warfare, psychological and actual, and antisemitism erupting worldwide, but nonetheless):

Palestinians are not The Enemy.

Arabs are not The Enemy.

Muslims are not The Enemy.

Hamas is The Enemy.

Hezbollah is The Enemy.

Khomeini and his ayatollahs are The Enemy.

Our fight – not just of the IDF but really of every Jewish person in the current socio-political world order – is not with anyone who seeks their own advancement through peaceful ways and democratic means. Certainly not with anyone who seeks to coexist with us on moral, honorable terms.

Our fight is with every individual who seeks their own advancement through our literal destruction.

Let’s keep our eyes on the proverbial ball and not fall into the same rut of irrational bigotry in which our adversaries are stuck.

Anti-Zionism and Me

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I used to hold space for anti-Zionism. Not any longer. The reaction since Oct 7 has clarified for me where anti-Zionists actually stand. I don’t begrudge Jewish anti-Zionists their right to an interpretation or a conscience but miss me with all that misguided rhetoric and propaganda.

We can thoroughly criticize our own state without directly enabling and supporting (latent, unwitting) anti-Semites.

(Of course, our great-grandparents never even had the opportunity to criticize their own state, because they were still forced to live under the hegemony of foreign imperialism and settler-colonialism.)

Also, this is everyone’s reminder that – beyond the Israelite and Jewish communities that had never left the land despite Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic occupation – organized Jewish resettlement of the land of Israel began not in 1948 but in 1558 with the resettlement of Tiberias under the leadership of Doña Gracia, in the wake of Europe’s latest demonstration of how welcome Jewish people really were among their various nations.

The Government Needs a Plan

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Neutralizing Hamas’s military capacity is the stated goal of this war (Bibi’s jingoistic propaganda aside).

Achieving that goal is necessary and while I have a lot of Questions, I don’t have access to nearly enough information to armchair quarterback the IDF in this war. So as long as the IDF is aiming to keep civilian deaths to a minimum and unless they actually cross red lines according to international law, I support their effort to achieve the stated goal.

But

Neutralizing Hamas’s military capacity is not a plan to neutralize Hamas’s political standing.

It’s not a plan to neutralize the ideology behind Hamas.

It’s not a plan to address the social, economic, and political factors that draw people to that ideology.

It’s not a plan to address its financial sponsors.

It’s not a plan to prevent Hamas from rising in another five years to continue their genocidal war against Jewish people in Israel.

It’s the first step. It’s a necessary step. But we need a government that is taking the rest of the steps and the clock is ticking.

Blood Libel vs The Facts

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If the IDF wanted to genocide Palestinians, the war would have been over within a week. The Palestinian populations of Israel and the West Bank would be gone.

The facts are that while the airstrikes have been devastating for Gazans…

…the death rate (less than 1 out of 100, and that’s INCLUDING Hamas fighters) hasn’t been anywhere near the destruction rate (1 out of 2 buildings in Gaza city and north Gaza).

…the civilian-combatant death ratio (2 civilians lost for every combatant killed) is nearly unmatched in modern warfare DESPITE Hamas deeply embedding their weapons and fighters among civilians.

…the humanitarian corridors are still provided by the IDF DESPITE Hamas continuing to fire rockets from them at Israeli and Palestinian civilian populations across central and southern Israel (including the West Bank).

These are facts, whether they fit your tiktok narrative or not.

What’s going on in Gaza is terrible but calling it genocide is a blood libel.

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.

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.