Hamas attacked Israel and wantonly killed and kidnapped people they encountered.
At first Israelis were shocked. It was so sudden.
Then they were horrified, as they learned what took place. It was so cruel.
Then they got angry and wanted payback.
I describe a widespread reaction among Israelis, Americans, opinion people in the news, people commenting on social media. I feel it myself. We are shocked by the brutality.
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| Gaza yesterday |
It is probably too soon to talk about our common humanity. Angry people don't want to hear it. "Common humanity" sounds weak, idealistic, fuzzy-headed, and empathetic to evil-doers. Those come across as words from sentimental fools who survive because of the courage and protection of realistic, hard-headed people who understand violence, and are willing to use it. It is too soon, too, to talk about long term goals or effective strategy. A strategy is already in place: It is to inflict punishment.
People have said to me, "Don't talk to me about moral equivalence. The Palestinians are evil. Period. End of story. They brought whatever happens on themselves." Of course GOP candidates were piling on with this message, but even low-drama, soft-spoken Biden was unequivocal saying that they are "evil, pure unadulterated evil." This is something both Democrats and Republicans can say. Indeed, must say. The public mood demands it.
Israel is a troubled democracy, what with Netanyahu challenging the independence of the judiciary, but in every democracy the people's will must be reckoned with. The Israeli Defense Minister meets the public mood. He called Hamas "animals," and is treating the people of Gaza like animals. They are trapped in a slaughterhouse. Videos of buildings exploding and crumbling are a google click away. Whole blocks are turned to rubble.
It is too soon for a person in public life to fuss about that. Too many people like seeing the payback. We hear stories of babies being beheaded. Of a girl swung by her ankles and her head slammed against a wall. Brutes! They must learn a lesson and pay a price. This is war.
I understand and expect the desire for revenge, but I feel something different.
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| New York Times |
I worry about who was in the buildings that exploded and fell. Were all the people in it evil, deserving of being crushed, trapped, suffocated in the rubble? Were there young children in there? Babies? Did they choose Hamas? Murder up close, with a blade, to make a political point, is terror. It is so wrong. But an artillery shell fired five miles is an act of calculation and craft, designed to eliminate a target. We see the crushed building, the smoke and dust, not the crushed head. It, too, is terror.
Like the Israeli victims at the music festival, the people in the rubble were accidents, people in the wrong place at the wrong time, killed on purpose to make a political point. Possibly the people killed and kidnapped by Hamas supported Netanyahu. Others not. Who knows their politics? They were Israeli, and that was enough for Hamas. The people in the rubble had no meaningful political agency, but they were ruled over by Hamas. That was enough.
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| Gaza yesterday |
In time people will sit in quiet spaces to consider long term goals and effective strategy. Israelis and Americans will wonder why a thousand people went on a likely suicide mission to kill Israelis at a music festival. What motivated them? Could they possibly have considered themselves patriots, like so many of those who broke through the doors and windows of the Capitol? I have urged Democrats to consider what motivates people in the Trump orbit. Something is going on. Disagree and disapprove of them, sure, but try to understand them.
I hope the people do the same with the Hamas attack.
I have asked questions. I will suggest an answer and make a prediction. The Israeli response will feel good and appropriate in the short run, but it won't age well. It won't lead to peace. More Israelis will die because of it. Tit for tat for tit for tat for tat. . . .
I heard a joke yesterday from a college classmate. A man bemoaned the centuries of religious strife in the Holy Land. He asked God, "when will this end?"
God shook his head in dismay and said, "not in my lifetime."
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19 comments:
Given that this is being referred to as "Israel's 9/11" I wonder if Israel will now attack Finland or some other place that had nothing to do with this.
Hamas built its main headquarters in the basement of a hospital. They store weapons in mosques and schools. They use the people they are supposed to be governing and protecting as human shields.
Israel is going to eradicate Hamas. It’s too bad about those human shields, but Israel is not going to respect the lives of those people at the cost of the lives of its own people. Hamas bears the moral price for the fate of those human shields.
Peter mentions that in Israeli official called the terrorists “animals.” I can’t think of a better word for someone who beheads babies. I can think of plenty of worse ones.
One other thought:
Israel is not going to allow the kidnapped Israeli hostages to be effective as human shields; there is no way they will allow Palestinians to be effective as human shields. Hamas’ human shield tactic became obsolete on Saturday.
Michael T, are you SURE about your claims? I tried verification, and found this: “ Babies and toddlers were found with their “heads decapitated [sic]," a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Like, truth is the first casualty in war. I, for one, trust Netanyahoo as far as I can throw him. And beware of all the headless cabezas!
A lot of people are reporting that babies were beheaded during the Hamas raid. It must be true, we heard it on social media, but so far the Israeli military has not confirmed it and it remains a rumor.
What we do know is that both sides are ruthlessly killing civilians, including women and children. Whether it’s done by swords, guns, missiles or air strikes, it’s terrorism.
As Peter said yesterday: “Of course, this is grist for U.S. presidential politics.” Sure enough, from the beginning Republicans have been claiming that it’s all Biden’s fault, just like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If you can’t follow their logic, maybe your brain isn’t convoluted enough.
Animals- animals don’t kill for visual effect or political purposes, thats a strictly Homo sapiens trait. Among the set of animals, we are the only animal who commits such atrocities. The Palestinian people in Gaza have been living in hellish conditions for many years, the victims of an ethnic kind of apartheid, they are mad as hell and aren’t taking it anymore. A majority of the Gazans are teenagers, especially easy to brainwash and encourage to atrocious acts. The brains behind Hamas are intent on destroying any possibility of a diplomatic agreement between Israel and the Saudis. And the world is falling into a very dangerous and turbulent period where instability will be the norm. I’m an old fart, largely irrelevant to the fabric of the political world, I worry for my grandchildren who will certainly not have the stability and financial security that I and most of my boomer cohorts enjoyed.
Here’s a report on what the Hamas animals did, courtesy of CNN.
https://youtu.be/BMkxON_HgBY?si=WA8xyM0KjLMIbkr5
Depends on how close the Israeli Court system gets to actually prosecuting BiBi.
Well said, Malcolm. I had much the same thoughts. It's possible, but hopefully just overheated Propaganda.
An eyewitness account of what the Hamas animals were doing:
https://youtu.be/1JmRL-xo_tI?si=EpioQAjI8z7hT-K_
CNN reported what Malcolm mentioned above, that Netanyahu's office (who wasn't out there) claimed babies were found with their "heads decapitated." The Israeli army, that was out there, has denied having any confirmation of allegations that Hamas fighters beheaded babies. Not that I'd put it past them, but I'd withhold judgment until there's more credible confirmation.
Let's not forget that both parties are ruthlessly killing civilians of all ages and God is on both their sides.
Denial and obfuscation on patent Hamas aggression and unspeakable, nonpareil barbarism glibly alternate with minimizing, blame-shifting calls for context, comparison/contrast and perspective (an analysis otherwise, as politically convenient, dismissed as “whataboutism”).
This is today’s Left in the West, depending on whether the accused hate-and-violence perps are politically credentialed victims or certified oppressors. BlackLivesMatter, surprise surprise, is foursquare behind Hamas. “Equity” means “victim” ends justify or mitigate “victim” means.
Identity-group favoritism invariably makes justice customized, or self-referential. Funny, that has been precisely the longtime critique of Western institutions by critics on the Left. Perhaps the real objection was that they just wanted the correct, deserving folks with the whip hand.
The biggest atrocity being committed as we speak is that millions of people in Gaza are being bombed and deprived of food, water, power and medicine.
Under the rules of engagement Mike would like to impose, we would never have won World War II.
I don’t think we “won” WW II; we simply didn’t LOSE as badly as we would have, had we been located closer to the action.
You don’t win with 420,000 deaths.
Unconditional surrender by Germany and Japan (and Italy, for what it’s worth) sounds a lot like winning to me. People weren’t celebrating deliriously in places like Times Square in 1945 for no reason.
VERY sorry you don’t get it, MT
I was there, MT. We were not celebrating victory; we were celebrating the end of millions of people suffering and dying, on both sides of the friggin war.
Wow, Malcolm, how old are you?
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