Thousands are dead. Millions are traumatized. And, seemingly, billions are brainwashed. The events that have unfolded over the past 3 ½ weeks, both within Israel and Gaza and without, have demonstrated irrefutably that the deep division Americans have sensed is nothing proprietary to the United States. As protests devolve into antisemitic demands for expiation on the part of Israelis, exercises in victim-blaming are ubiquitous (from those who this author would never dare accuse of being hypocrites), as though the Jewish nation’s skirt was merely hemmed a touch too short for Hamas’ liking. They were oppressed; what other choice was there but to butcher grandmothers? The logic employed is truly overwhelming stuff.
What has been especially shocking aside from Hamas’ barbarity has been the scale and professional organization of these rancorous protests throughout the West. While there are certainly plenty of pro-Palestine, anti-Israel activists that predate October of this year (SJP has long been a nuisance on campuses from Amherst to Berkeley and beyond), we’ve simply never seen anything like this in our side of the world. In New York, London, Paris, and seemingly everywhere else, Jewish people are looking out their windows and seeing scores of their countrymen disregarding the events of October the 7th, fully placing blame at the feet of Israel instead. This must be disheartening beyond belief.
It isn’t necessary to relitigate the crimes of Hamas in this nor every piece on the subject, as these are by now well-documented and unavoidable. However, it does seem that for some, the evidence has not been enough, for whatever reason. For some, they may simply not care, finding justification in an ideology that tells them Israelis are something like Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” on steroids, and that no Israeli should be safe from paying up, as it were, for supposed crimes against Palestinians, and indeed Gazans. For others, it is a product of a conspiratorial worldview – something that the media and many on the left would have you believe is solely a conservative characteristic. But whether you are denying the Holocaust or denying October the 7th and the laundry list of atrocities that occurred that day, you are an antisemite.
What of Israel’s response to this point? Well, as of this writing, Israel has begun their ground operation inside of Gaza. Beyond that, we can only speculate. Have they entered the so-called “terror tunnels” which serve as an ant farm-like hideaway for Hamas’ soldiers and VIPs? Do they know where any of the hostages are, or how many remain alive? Will they be able to differentiate between civilians and terrorists in disguise, hiding in plain sight? There are many questions that are fair to ask, but what isn’t fair to ask (or rather demand) is any kind of ceasefire or expectation that Hamas’ medieval depravity be met with flowers and polite requests. Israel had no choice but to respond significantly, not only for retaliatory purposes, but preventative ones as well (why wouldn’t they simply attack again otherwise? Someone calling for a ceasefire, please let me know).
And so, while the West debates the intricacies of particular strikes and methods employed in defense of the only Jewish state in existence, Israel gets to work, with the stated goal of wiping Hamas out once and for all. We must support this. We have to. In war, it is rare that there exists a wholly good side and a wholly bad side. There will be specific instances where you may not support everything that Israel is doing, the behavior of every soldier, the result of every bomb and bullet that is fired. But we mustn’t lose sight of the reality here. Hamas is an evil organization. They do not hesitate to kill children, the elderly, the disabled, the homosexual, the innocent… anyone. They do not think like we do. Stop projecting your Western morals onto people that would not hesitate to slit your throat if it would help their cause 0.000001%. This is not an indictment of all Muslims, needless (but perhaps necessary still) to say, nor even of all Gazans, most of whom I suspect are decent people. But regardless of whether Hamas would live in the middle of Antarctica or in the middle of a bustling metropolis, they cannot be allowed to continue to operate. The hang gliders must be incinerated, the tunnels must be caved in, the infrastructure must be destroyed, the soldiers and leadership permanently vanquished. For Israel, there is simply no other choice. For terrorists, there can be no safe zones, no timeouts, no mercy, no matter what – and we must understand and accept this.
God bless the innocent lives everywhere that are impacted by this conflict.
Godspeed, Israel.
God damn Hamas.
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