I
think all journalists, when start talking about the war Israel is in, should
start by “the war, that was started by Hamas, who didn’t surrender yet… etc
etc” Isn’t this phrase right?
If
you have a war happening somewhere, how to decide where do you stand? Obviously
nobody in sane mind “likes” wars, but are wars never justifiable? Like world
war II, to which we look back and see clearly that someone needed to be
defeated… So, if someone attacks you, should you just say “please, stop”? Or if
you strike back, should you stop when you start winning, because then obviously
the enemy has more losses? Even if the enemy doesn’t give the slightest signal
that he will stop attacking you? Even if he is still attacking you? Even if you
still have soldiers dying every week?
But
how can I say Hamas attacked first? Because Israel wasn’t attacking in October
6th. But some people will not accept that, because they say Israel
was wrong to defend it’s borders, to watch if someone was coming in with guns…
That is, in the end, that Israel shouldn’t even be there… Because if we
consider that Israel has a right to exist and defend itself, and we read a
little about what happened on October 7th, we wouldn’t be so shocked
that a war started that day.
What
happened in October 7th is the kind of thing we obviously must say
“it just can’t keep going, it just can’t happen anymore”. But is war the only
solution? Well, who is stepping up to find another way to make Hamas definitely
stop?
The
press only shows the attacks that come from Israel, most people don’t even know
how many rockets were fired by the Hezbollah from Lebanon, don’t even know tenths
of thousands of Israelis that live in the North of the country had to leave
their homes because of the rockets. But the other side don’t evacuate their
civilians – on the contrary, they keep them right in the fire line.
There
are still Israeli hostages in Gaza. There was a negotiation for the release of
the hostages a few weeks ago and the world didn’t stop to see, didn’t seem to
care. Maybe because they would have to face the fact that Hamas is real, and
active.
The
press speaks a lot about “proportion” and not about “necessity”. What is
“proportion”? If someone invades your house with a gun swearing to kill your
family, and already killed a loved one, and there is only one cop in your city
you can call, will you tell him, “please don’t come with a better gun than his,
for the sake of proportion”?
Yes,
Palestinian and Lebanese civilians dying is something extremely tragic, but can
the world at least open the mouth to say “things like Hamas just can’t exist
anymore”? Can the press show the Hamas leaders saying that when their people
die is a good thing, because they become martyrs? How can the world find a
solution, if it cares, without facing the facts?
There
is a lot of pressure to be on the side of the “Palestinians”. Aren’t you on the
side of the poor? Aren’t you on the side of the underdog? If we see on Tic Toc
sad things, then you know yhere is trouble in the world, and you may start to
think what could people do to make it better. Of course it’s easier to just
point your finger against Israel, than seeing the whole complex situation.
Israel
is a country, alone in the middle east among
Islamic countries that are getting more and more extreme in their
ideology, as if that tiny country – Israel – was to blame for something, God
knows what, since these Islamic countries have all they need to prosper, and
their leaders are indeed very rich. But these leaders, especially the leaders
of Iran, support attacks like October 7th, , and Israel needs to be able to tell their
children that it won’t happen again. In fact, one of the reasons a lot of Jews
went to Israel was to say that the Holocaust won’t happen again.
So
Israel must defend somehow, diminish the power their enemies have to attack. The
idea that Israel is an aggressor state by nature is a lie. And if you use a lie
as foundation to build your thinking, your whole thinking will be a very
strange building.
In
fact, there are defenders of gay rights and woman rights supporting terrorists
who kill gays and women because it’s “their culture”. So, the Palestinian and Israeli
homosexual and women seem to owe something to a group of men who hate everybody
except their racist, homophobic, misogynic and extremely rich leaders. Young
people who obviously don’t want to be violently attacked in their homes are
taught to pretend they wouldn’t mind, if it was for “justice”.
Such a monstrous building, where
nothing fits nothing, can only have been built upon lies. And they are big lies
about how the world works. As if only white people have had empires – and by
the way, the Jews never had an empire, and just started being considered “perfectly
white Europeans” very recently in human history. Why don’t you get into your
time machine and go tell the nazis that Jews are “white Europeans”?
And
anyway, even if you could divide the world between rich countries as bad and
poor countries as victims, you can’t say everybody in a rich country is bad – poor
people there suffered too – and everybody in poor countries are victims – their
powerful people are exploiters too.
If
you say all your “rich” countries only have perpetrators and all your “poor”
countries only have victims you silence all the normal men and women and
protect all the powerful. Because the normal men in the rich countries can’t
stand for their beliefs, because they are all bad, and the normal men in the
poor countries won’t be defended from evil leaders because it is wrong to say
their leaders are evil, because these countries only have victims. That’s a
perfect way to defend all the power in the planet.
What
if instead of pretending only “white” countries had empires – ever heard of the
Ottoman Empire? And what is China? – we looked at ways of doing things, that
can be right or wrong? What if we realize that all through History, and everywhere,
there were people who just wanted to go to the top, just wanted to fulfill
their own wishes, pleasing the ones who are on top and making it harder for
possible competitors, and pretending they have nothing to do with it if
something bad happens to someone. And there are people who are brave enough to
do their best to live according to good principles. At least in a democracy,
the brave people have more chances to try to change things.
Standing
on the side of Israel is accepting there are no magical solutions, no “white
countries” that should cease to exist and everything would be fine, no
tyrannical governments who will stop mistreating people if we are “nice” to
them, no terrorist organization who “just want to attack their oppressors”. No
violent crimes that are “not really crimes”, no “alternative form of
government”, no “revolution” that will magically change the World. No war that
can be stopped by the side who was attacked, before the side that attacked at
least stops to attack.
It’s
accepting that this World that we have is the World we have to deal with, these
are the countries that exist and they are not going anywhere, and there is no
other way to solve things than holding people and governments accountable for
their deeds. No way to change the World except doing our best to act more
ethically in all spheres. No other form of Justice besides good old
case-by-case impartiality.
But
of course it is easier to point to someone and blame them for everything that
is wrong, then all that people have to do is to say, “we are not them”. Then
you don’t have to check your own life and decisions, your own actions, don’t
have to really question if you are being ethical or just climbing to the top,
on your job or your college. You don’t have to be creative and find new
solutions, no, all you have to do is scream “We are not them”. It defines us as
human beings.
I’m
white but I am not like the “white oppressors” – and why? Because you really do
your business in a different way? No, we didn’t really think about it, “we are
not like them because we hate them”. I’m not like Israel or the Jews who defend
it – the vast majority – and being “not them” makes me a good person.
Then
people don’t have to think hard about a World that is complex, and obviously –
and unfortunately – is not at peace, and will not magically be at peace if one,
and only one of the sides stop fighting. Do you know any other way to make
aggressors stop attacking that wasn’t tried? Peace proposals? Humanitarian aid?
All that was tried. Do you need any proof that terrorists use their people as
human shields? Have you made a research on that? Do you wonder why mainstream
journalists never say “human shield”? It’s not a subjective term… But who cares
about all that? “We are not them” so we are fine, we can scream it and go back
to life as usual.
As
if we fixed anything…
I
see that there are different levels of “protesting this war”. On one end, there
are people who literally support Hamas and Hezbollah and all that they do, I the
other end people who just say they care for Palestinians and don’t want to see
more suffering. But by marching together, they give a big sign to the Terrorist
groups that they can continue, they will be protected.
Maybe
this people who “just want it to stop” should talk to the people on the other
end, the people who want Israel to be destroyed by any means. Maybe they should
have a conversation about peace, maybe that would be a good start…
