In 1967, both before and after the Six Days War, I had nothing but respect and admiration for Israel. A small country surrounded by hostile neighbors fighting for its very survival. Because of this I researched the Holocaust, WWII's Warsaw Uprising, Czarist Russia's pogroms, and the Inquisition. I read as much as I could about the long history of Christian persecution of the Jewish people. While I still have a gentile's love of the idea of Israel I find the execution of that idea brutally flawed these past decades.
Today, the small country surrounded by a hostile neighbor is Gaza. The savage pogroms are inflicted by Jewish tanks and bombers against Palestinian homes. The walled ghetto is not in Warsaw holding in a beleaguered population of Jews fighting against the ruthless Nazi war machine. Today, the walled ghetto is Gaza. Today, it is Arab youths fighting tanks with stones. Today, the ruthless war machine is the IDF.
I have no love for Hamas. They hide their mortar launchers behind women and children, daring the Israelis to attack. Hamas has begged for this war on the strange theory that Hamas would win the propaganda war following a holocaust. But Israel has lost the moral high ground gained by two millennia of persecution. Israel has become their own enemy. I pity the helpless people trapped in the Gaza Ghetto, trapped as much by their Hamas leadership as by their Israeli oppressors.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment