Group blame only fosters more terrorism
In the days following the recent Hamas attack on Israel, its barbarous extent and the depravity of those cheering it became increasingly clear. But we need to distinguish between people and their government. We also need to recognize the difference between a country where anti-government protests are held and a dictatorship where dissent is crushed.
The massacre of babies demands that we restrain our glib responses. A few years ago, I saw a photo of a grieving Palestinian father in Gaza holding his dead baby girl, the top of her head missing. It was heartrending and indelible.
We must denounce the murder of Israeli children as we denounce the murder of Palestinian children. The anti-Israel left refuses to see this basic moral truth. There can be no peace in the absence of justice — not as a facile slogan, but a constant striving.
Peace cannot mean the peace of the grave for either population.
The fact that Netanyahu’s government ignored warnings from Egypt about the impending attack, along with his dismissal of criticisms by defense officials, makes his removal from power even more imperative than it already was, given his efforts to undermine the independence of Israeli courts. The wartime governing coalition only postpones this reckoning.
As for Gaza, we cannot negotiate with Hamas’ band of monsters. Its fighters do not wear uniforms, and they live beside civilians.
This is calculated to make high civilian casualties unavoidable. Hamas uses human shields the way a person wears a shirt. In effect, human shields are its uniforms.
Hamas intends and exploits the massacre of the innocent.
A two-state solution remains the only hope for that region; but it is impossible with Hamas in control of Gaza.
President Biden, while expressing strong support for Israel, stressed its obligation to obey the rules of war. If we use war to justify ethnic cleansing, any victory we celebrate is on poisoned ground.
Caricaturing entire religions and populations has a shameful and bloody history. From the Crusades of a millennium ago to the “yellow peril” of the 20th century to the anti-LGBTQ persecution in East Africa today, demonizing difference undermines the consistent rule of law, sows deadly chaos and only helps the unscrupulous.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and former prime minister Naftali Bennett, on the eve of a major military offensive, made statements embracing group blame and using the atrocities by Hamas to justify what amounts to ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, including babies. I cannot imagine a greater betrayal of the post-Holocaust pledge, “Never Again”— which means nothing if it does not apply to all of humanity.
The situation is far too grave for us in outrage to cut off painful but needed discussions. To stand effectively against Hamas’ butchers, we must begin by caring about all the children of the region. The legacy of past horrors does not and cannot give us a blank check.
Netanyahu uses war in part to silence his domestic political opposition. The mass protests have stopped. Still, his government’s policy of annexation and dispossession must be rejected, as must its inflamed response guaranteed to perpetuate enmity down through generations rather than end it.
Years ago there was a group in D.C. called Lambda Salaam-Shalom, dedicated to building bridges between gay Jews and gay Muslims. Some of the LGBTQ refugees in Kenya whom I help send me greetings on Muslim holy days. They use the word Inshallah, “If Allah wills it,” to express their hopes.
After having been forced to flee family and country, they treat me as a surrogate father. How can I reject them based on the acts of others, especially when religious fanatics here in America justify or ignore acts of domestic terror? Just last week in Chicago, a man stabbed a six-year-old boy to death for being a Muslim. When we employ double standards, we make frauds and bloody fools of ourselves.
Wartime passions bring intolerance of dissent and provoke scapegoating, as when hate crimes against American Muslims rose after 9/11. During the Cold War after World War II, the search for an “enemy within” led to the destruction of thousands of lives when gay people were declared unfit for federal service.
We must have the imagination to see ourselves in others. Otherwise, we dishonor our own forebears.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, who fails even to see himself, says, “We are in a religious war here. I am with Israel…. Level the place [Gaza].”
His blood lust is a path to ruin. The terrorists want to drag us down to their level. Let us disappoint them.
Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist. Contact him atrrosendall@me.com. Copyright © 2023 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.
One of the more common-sense takes I’ve seen on *any* subject put out by this publication in the last 5 years.
However, if we’re going to look at reality, we cannot lie to ourselves about certain facts.
Hamas is a creation of Israel. It was created, funded, and armed by Israel in the 1970s as a counter to Yassar Arafat and the PLO. Now it’s come back to bite them. Nothing is ever as one-sided or simple as people think. Today, Hamas is largely controlled and funded by Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood (along with Iran and Turkey), so leveling Gaza isn’t going to solve the problem. The more we find out, the more it looks like this attack was allowed to happen to give Israel the excuse it needed to do something it has wanted to do for the last 75 years: eradicate Palestine. But this was never the desire of the Israeli *people*.
The hate between these groups has been manufactured by so-called “political” forces; not the people. Prior to the creation of Israel, Jews, Christians, and Muslims had been living in the region of Palestine for hundreds of years and everything was peaceful. But over past seven decades, endless political and religious propaganda has created an attitude of fear, intolerance, and hate on all sides. It was engineered.
What the everyday person doesn’t understand is that ALL of these terrorist organizations were created and funded by the exact same people. The conflicts are real but the supposed motivations behind them are manufactured. In fact, the entire Middle East situation was manufactured to be exactly what it is today. By the way, the Ukraine situation is absolutely no different.
The people of the world need to figure out who’s really pulling the strings in all these wars, and to what end. Do not be so naive as to think the political leaders of the various countries are the masterminds behind these conflicts. It’s not that simple. Politicians are just front men for people higher up the food chain. Once people figure out that nothing really works the way they think it does, they might stop falling for narratives designed to get them to “pick a side”. Keeping the people of earth divided and fighting each other is how the true enemy avoids scrutiny.
No one should be taking a side in this conflict — except the side of the innocent civilians (on both sides).
Can we just nuke all of the Middle East and end 20 plus century long war with middle eastern countries? Tx has enough oil for the USA. We don’t need them for that anymore. Now all they want is just our money to fight another stupid bs war. I say we nuke all of it and move along