Why Would You Say That? Or Believe that?

Why Would You Say That?  Or Believe That?

Imagine the conniption fit we as a nation would have if the Prime Minister of the UK, France, or Germany were to call for a candidate for President of the United States to drop out of the race.

Well, as much as I like Chuck Schumer, that’s what he did recently by publicly stating his preference that Israel should dissolve the Knesset, hold new elections, and elect as Prime Minister someone other than Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now, I am no fan of Netanyahu.  He represents a right-wing orientation that I disagree with, has flown cover for some of the most radical right religious elements in Israeli politics, and, like Trump, knows that being Prime Minister (or becoming President again) is his only shot at not being convicted – in Netanyahu’s case for violating campaign contribution laws a/k/a corruption.

However, Schumer’s speech did not help the cause of dumping Netanyahu.  In fact, it probably made it more difficult to unseat him.  Even the anti-Netanyahu folks in Israel are monumentally pissed off that the US Senate Majority Leader is meddling in Israeli electoral politics.

Did Schumer actually think he was helping or was he just polishing his anti-right bona fides by targeting the eminently targetable Prime Minister of Israel?  I am placing my money on the latter.

Moreover, all the folks who think that getting rid of Netanyahu will automatically stop the war against Hamas are sadly mistaken.  Any Prime Minister of Israel from any political party would have gone to war against Hamas and would be pressing the case that most of the Palestinian civilian casualties are happening because Hamas uses their own people as human shields, uses civilian infrastructure, disguises its operatives as civilians, and distorts the truth to get the useful idiots in the world press to publish their propaganda.

For those who are old enough to remember the body counts provided by the US in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq you know no one believed that they were accurate except for our own casualties.  So why does the media continue to quote Hamas’ number of casualties?  Hamas says 30,000 Palestinians have been killed.  Israel says they have killed 15,000 Hamas operatives.  Let me submit that perhaps neither source is supremely accurate.  But on the whole, I do trust one more that the other.

For the sake of this argument — If both those things are true then the Israelis have done a better job protecting Palestinian civilians (as a percent of total casualties) than the US ever did in Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, or Iraq.  Better than the Allies in WWII, better than the Soviets in Afghanistan, better than Turkey with the Kurds, better than either India or Pakistan in Kashmir.

If neither of those things are believed true, why do news sources continue to quote Hamas’ numbers?

So, why is it that Israel has to defend itself in the court of public opinion from Hamas’ propaganda but not the other way around?  But it gets worse.  Why is it that the world demands that Israel stop, but not that Hamas disarm and release the hostages who are still in captivity?  Why is it that Israel is accused of genocide* and not Hamas whose genocidal aspirations towards Jews are built in to their founding documents?  Israel is not trying to eliminate the Gazans and certainly not all the Palestinian people as that would include some 20% of its own citizens.  But wow, does that word have punch.  How is it that the same people arguing that the IHRA definition of antisemitism is too vague are tossing around the term genocide as if it is any more distinctly defined?  Go ahead and read the definition put forth by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide a/k/a the Genocide Convention and make your own evaluation.

China and Russia just vetoed a US proposed Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas because it contained a requirement for Hamas to release all the hostages they took.  Excuse me, but what the fuck is that about other than support for terrorism?

I maintain that  Israel is trying to eliminate Hamas as a terrorist organization capable of aggression towards Israelis and other Jews.  I further maintain that genocide is defined as a program of eliminating a people as a people, as a nation or within a nation or society.  By that definition, it is Hamas that is genocidal, not Israel.  Why would you believe otherwise?

Hamas could end this tragedy tomorrow if their leadership actually gave a damn about the civilian population, but they do not and they will not stop in their quest to kill Jews.  The Israelis, in a desire to halt the murder, rape, and torture of its civilians, cannot stop if they are to fulfil their obligation to keep their citizens out of harm’s way. 

And because the world, including the virulently anti-Israel United Nations, has spent its energy excoriating Israel over the past 50+ years while continuing to turn a blind eye to the funding and support of terrorists and the use of Palestinian/Gazan funds to build terrorist infrastructure and weaponry, the situation on the ground has devolved into “them or us”, and Israel has, not surprisingly, chosen the us.

Thus, the immovable object comes up against the irresistible force.  And because the rapine and murder was not on TV, but the war against Hamas is on TV, thousands of nice, liberal and/or progressive mostly middle-class or upper middle class young people are out on campus and in the streets echoing Hamas rhetoric with not a fucking clue what those words really mean or what Hamas (and Hezbollah) are really about.  Yes, I know that is an egregiously incomplete conclusion.

Then, of course, there is the other reason.

* Genocide against who?  The 2.3 million Gazans?  The 5.4 million non-Israeli Palestinians?  The 7.1 million total of all Palestinians?  Or the 1.8 million Palestinians that are full Israeli citizens?