#787 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday November 3)
Good morning,
I said I wasn’t going to talk about Gaza for a while. That said, a lot of readers have a lot to say and emotions run high. As should be no surprise, the hostility ranges over (a) general consensus on the barbarity of the massacres by Hamas (with shock with those who commended the attack), (b) opinions on both sides of the response by Israel, and (c) responses to the demonstrations against Israel that advocate for the elimination of Israel and/or are blatantly antisemitic.
I’ve picked some commentary that’s been shared and that I’ve seen. For purposes of maintaining respect for those voicing these opinions, I’ve elected in this instance not to share names of friends, while noting public sources:
Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine the day after the October 7th massacres: “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence…”
“Unfortunately the problem is Jews are always wrong and Arabs are always right no matter what’s been or will be done.”
“Being students of history is so vitally important, particularly right now. There are so many people who do not know what happened in 1948, 1967, 1973, 2000, and even in 2005 when Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. That ignorance is fueling an intensity of hatred that seems to me to be a huge problem. An understanding of that history may not change minds but it will fuel a contextual mindset that might be more productive than the blind hatred we see now. And, of course, history also teaches us that an occupying nation cannot continue to occupy another people indefinitely. Fifty years of occupation will never work, there is no way to win hearts and minds with such an historically untenable position, there is only anger, much of it justified. So these folks need to learn their history. A college graduate [recently said] that in 1948 the Palestinians gave to the Jews the land of Israel to create their own state. Gave!!?? By the Palestinians!! This is big hurdle to surmount.”
“I really like how you organized your thoughts and ideas… but do you really not think that yesterday’s attack on the refugee camp was genocide? You asked if it’s ok to kill one to save many…here they killed many innocent civilians to get one… Israel, whom we always heard has the best intelligence and army in the world… (obviously not true anymore) but with every advanced technology that they have access to, this was the only way to get the one Hamas operative??? I would love to see the demise of Hamas…they are brutal and evil thugs…but not in this way. I have always viewed Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as horrible and inhumane and wonder how a persecuted people can now persecute (I am a Jewish woman, btw). I am always amazed and dismayed how many of my liberal NY Jewish friends…who fight for human rights for everyone else but turn their gaze away from the total inhumanity of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian civilians…”
“Good people everywhere want a better future for Israelis and Palestinians, one that provides security, dignity and prosperity for both peoples. Such a future will not come from the barbarity of Hamas—whose evil actions are not only directed against the people of Israel but against Palestinian civilians of Gaza each and every day. Over the course of the last sixteen years of ruling Gaza, Hamas has built its military infrastructure underneath schools, hospitals, mosques and apartment dwellings with callous disregard to (sic) civilian life.”
“Does your church need armed guards? ‘Cause our synagogue does.” –End Jew Hate billboard
Shared from a few years ago: “I got death threats, but I’m coming anyway. I got explicit death threats, but I have no intention of surrendering. I refuse to cancel my performances in Israel.” –Paul McCartney back when he was touring. The death threats are not a new phenomenon…
POETRY THAT CAPTURES THE MOMENT
Jerusalem, by Yehuda Amichai, Israeli poet, worth contemplating in these difficult times:
On a roof in the Old City
laundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight
the white sheet of a woman who is my enemy,
the towel of a man who is my enemy,
to wipe off the sweat of his brow.
In the sky of the Old City
a kite
At the other end of the string,
a child
I can't see
because of the wall.
We have put up many flags,
they have put up many flags.
To make us think that they're happy
To make them think that we're happy.
Charles Lane, in the Washington Post, wrote a heart-wrenching description of what he saw in the 56-minute vido of the Hamas October 7th rampage. He said it reminded him of “In the City of Slaughter,” by Hayim Nahman Bialik. This excerpt was written in 1905 to describe the pogroms but he said it fit now, as well:
Arise and go now to the city of slaughter;
Into its courtyard wind thy way;
There with thine own hand touch, and with the eyes of thine head,
Behold on tree, on stone, on fence, on mural clay,
The spattered blood and dried brains of the dead.
Proceed thence to the ruins, the split walls reach,
Where wider grows the hollow, and greater grows the breach;
Pass over the shattered hearth, attain the broken wall
Whose burnt and barren brick, whose charred stones reveal
The open mouths of such wounds, that no mending
Shall ever mend, nor healing ever heal.”
THINGS ISRAEL COULD DO NOW
I’m not going to opine here on the bombings in Gaza. I am going to suggest instead a few “little things” Israel could do right now:
1. Clarify why it was a wartime necessity to target the Hamas leader who was killed in an attack that killed dozens of civilians. Share the intelligence: was it a command center, were most of the people there Hamas and their supporters, was this in the center of a refugee camp?
2. Offer an immediate trade of all the Palestinian political prisoners in Israel (which I understand numbers around 1,000) for all the hostages.
3. Offer to airlift out the worst cases from Gaza hospitals, to be kept safe and treated in Israeli hospitals.
4. Commit to a suspension of Jewish Israeli visits to the Temple Mount until questions of Jerusalem’s status are resolved.
5. Request Egyptian agreement to accommodate a limited number of Palestinian refugees.
6. State unequivocally no desire to occupy and govern Hamas for longer than a period of months, until an international group can be substituted in.
REPUBLICAN “LEADERSHIP”
Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the House, has tied increased funding for Israel to reduction in already approved funding for the IRS. He’s clearly trying to set up the Democrats, who likely will his bill in the Senate. Then he can politicize support of Israel, arguing that Democrats opposed it. So statesmanlike. My prediction is this will not be the most outrageous thing Mr. Johnson, a man woefully unprepared for the job and who has not yet “paid his dues” for leadership, does during his tenure as Speaker. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-passes-republicans-israel-aid-bill-faces-dead-end-senate-2023-11-02/
Tommy Tuberville continues to hold up promotions of America’s most senior military officers, at a time of great worldwide strife and risk (particularly in the Middle East). All so that he can get the military not to fund servicewomen from crossing state lines for abortions. While Republicans are angry with him, they don’t seem to have stomach for doing much to push him to relent or support a Democratic move to temporarily suspend the rule allowing the good senator from playing with our national security.
Have a great day,
Glenn