Some 2,000 British ‘cultural figures’ have signed a letter explicitly condemning Israel’s “war crimes” and implicitly supporting Hamas’s savagery.
Now, I don’t know how many ‘cultural figures’ Britain can boast altogether. Whatever that number may be, 2,000 ‘artists’ (another word by which they are identified in the press) must be a large and representative sample.
This assumption isn’t based on any personal knowledge for I’ve never heard of 1,998 of the signatories. That establishes their bona fides because ‘someone I’ve never heard of’ is an accurate definition of a ‘cultural figure’ or a ‘celebrity’.
Then again, they’ve never heard of me either, so we are on an equal footing there. Hence it’s from a platform of parity that I try to read their emetic… sorry, I mean emphatic missive.
And what do you know, though disgusted by the overall thrust of the letter, I find myself in agreement with some of its points. For example, this one: “Gaza is already a society of refugees and the children of refugees. Now, in their hundreds of thousands…”
A minor correction if I may. Those Palestinian Arabs aren’t only children, but also grandchildren and great-grandchildren of refugees. By any norms of international law, this means they themselves aren’t refugees, but one’s heart doesn’t think in legal categories. And if that organ wishes to describe those great-grandchildren as ‘refugees’, no legal casuistry can change that.
“Dispossessed of rights, described by Israel’s minister of defence as ‘human animals’, they have become people to whom almost anything can be done” is another statement I find indisputable.
In the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s monstrous raid, Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant indeed described those blood-soaked beheaders of babies as “human animals”. Some people, and not just Israelis, even dispensed with the modifier, suggesting that no decapitators of babies can possibly be human.
I disagree. Dehumanising one’s enemies points to a rosy-spectacled misunderstanding of human nature. Humans are perfectly capable of acting like savage beasts without forfeiting their claim to humanity. Evil comes to us as naturally as virtue, perhaps even more so.
If you don’t believe me, read Genesis. You know, the book that explained we are all brushed with the tar of original sin. Without plumbing theological depths here, let’s just say that the concept of original sin pinpointed the reality of human nature, making it intelligible and true to life.
Being human may mean being either good or evil. It also means being free and able to choose one or the other. That’s why I disagree with Mr Gallant: those Hamas cutthroats are fully human – and fully evil. They chose wrong.
As to the second part of that sentence, “they have become people to whom almost anything can be done”, here my agreement doesn’t even have to be qualified. The release form to that effect was signed with the blood dripping off Hamas machetes.
That implicit document relinquished the safeguards against “almost anything that can be done”. It authorised the Israelis to do anything deemed necessary to defend themselves against extinction – even if that entails massive civilian casualties.
Moreover, the more civilians are killed, the happier Hamas will be. This is a unique situation in the history of warfare: most belligerents, even those who don’t mind their enemy’s civilian deaths, try to minimise their own. Hamas, on the other hand, wants as many civilian deaths in Gaza as possible. They count on Israel and the rest of the West being paralysed by the ensuing protests, such as this luvvie letter.
Actually, looking at the huge crowds of Palestinian (and other) Muslims dancing in the streets every time Israelis are massacred, one wonders how civilian they really are. But leaving that quibble aside, if they do die in large numbers, it’s not Israel that will kill them. It’s Hamas.
The aggressor and only the aggressor is to blame for civilian casualties on both sides. Thus it wasn’t British and American pilots who killed the denizens of Dresden and Hamburg but Hitler. It wasn’t the US Air Force that firebombed Tokyo and nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki but the Japanese warlords. And if a Ukrainian drone kills civilians in Belgorod or Kursk, it will be Putin to blame, not Zelensky.
Those 2,000 luvvies didn’t even try to feign objectivity and a sense of balance. They talked about Israel’s “war crimes” without ever even mentioning Hamas and the unspeakable atrocities it perpetrated. This raises the question of what the luvvies actually want, apart from signalling their impeccable leftie credentials.
This is their answer: “We support the global movement against the destruction of Gaza and the mass displacement of the Palestinian people. We demand that our governments end their military and political support for Israel’s actions.”
The “global movement” they are referring to is otherwise called jihad, something that Muslim leaders demanded once they had tasted Israeli blood yet again.
The global jihad they call for starts with massive demonstrations in all major Western cities, all expertly organised and coordinated. (You don’t think those millions hit the streets at the same time because of some osmotic connection, do you?) The next stage will be another wave of terror, with public transport blown up, SUVs driven through crowds, people shot or knifed at random, like those two Swedes murdered in Belgium the other day.
At the same time, our governments (note the plural: those British ‘cultural figures’ are speaking on behalf of our whole civilisation) should leave Israel to her gruesome fate without even political support, never mind the military kind.
Put together, those two sentences should leave one in no doubt as to what the luvvies want: Israel’s destruction, with millions of civilian deaths, and a global victory for Islamic terrorism. I wished they had said that outright, obviating my need to decipher their drivel.
The situation leaves no room for peaceful coexistence between Israel and Hamas. It’s either… or, to use Kierkegaard’s phrase. Either Israel or Hamas is left standing.
But I’m glad we’ve got to the bottom of it. It’s always good to know how the chips fall and which side our ‘cultural figures’ are on. They may number 2,000, but their name is legion.
P.S. Congratulations to my good friend, the Rev. Peter Mullen. In a letter to The Mail on Sunday, he took exception to their columnist Peter Hitchens’s remark that Israel is the world’s only country blamed for being attacked. Peter correctly observed that another country, the Ukraine, suffers the same fate every time Hitchens takes pen to paper. Hear, hear.
Spot on! Mr Boot. Well said!
Israel certainly has the right to existence and self-defence against those beatly terrorist creatures. The only problem is that Israel helped create that Hamas monster as it tried to counteract PLO and Arafat. That was a gross mistake yet to be admitted. Secondly, that OT eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth principle might have worked well for the OT era, but it is for a reason that Jesus replaced that old commandment with His “love your enemy” principle. The eye-for-eye action (though it’s actually three Palestinian eyes for one Israeli eye) may only lead to the aggravation of the mutual frenzy and hatred vicious circle instead of healing the wounds of mutual enmity, so one may argue that acting in accordance with the gospel principle might in the final analysis defend Israel a lot better than acting in the spirit of the OT eye-for-eye. Jesus just made a point that when any person or nation responds to brutality with double brutality that person or nation becomes as brutal as the ones they want to punish for their evil. Avenging Hamas can only transform the avengers into their image and likeness.
Had Israel acted in the spirit of Matthew, it would have become extinct 70 years ago. To solve the apparent clash between the two Testaments, St Augustine introduced the concept of just war, and every serious theologian has been developing it ever since. These things are a lot more nuanced than they appear to some Bible-thumping Christians.
In the current environment further escalation can be a dangerous thing for Israel’s security. If they want to rescue hostages, they will hardly be able to do it by invading Gaza because those rascals may kill them the moment Israel invades. In my humble opinion it would be better to strike a deal with Hamas leaders: we release a couple of your criminals from our prison in exchange for one or two hostages and then continue along this path until all hostages are released. Secondly, Israeli reservists have little experience in urban warfare – ideally, they might need to be trained by Wagner PMC professionals – or their losses can be unacceptably high. Thirdly, a full-scale military operation in Gaza may trigger a new circle of violence, since Hezbollah with its formidable stockpile of missiles may hit Northern Israel. What’s more, Turkey’s Erdohan has already expressed his displeasure about the U.S. warships in the Mediterranean. The implications are more than dangerous. The last thing Israel wants is to ignite the entire Muslim world. Even with the backing of the United States, the chances of Israel to defeat the combined forces of Iran, Turkey, Hezbollah (and possibly some Gulf states like Qatar that finances Palestinians) are slim.
It is rare that 2,000 idiots sign a declaration of their idiocy. Granted, it is not stated explicitly, but the subtext is there. “We support the global movement against the destruction of Gaza…” Who is destroying Gaza? Is it their claim the Israelis are destroying Gaza? The IDF regularly announce their intentions to counter attack areas within Gaza and the West Bank, giving innocent civilians (if there are any) time to vacate the area. Is that destruction and genocide? The IDF could move ground forces into Gaza and raze the entire region in days if not hours. They refrain. Is that destruction and genocide?
The Israelis live knowing that all of their Arab neighbors (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and at one remove Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey – not to mention Yemen, Oman, and Iran) have declared their intention to annihilate the Jewish state. When Israel declared its independence on the eve of the withdrawal of British forces in May 1948, she was immediately attacked by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Iraq. Israel was attacked again in 1967 and 1973. She has usually ceded any land gained in these wars, including the Sinai peninsula, most of Jordan, and Syria as far north as Damascus. Destruction and genocide? She just wants to be left alone.
In the 75 years since these so-called Palestinians became refugees, not one of the Arab countries that has attacked Israel has offered to house them. In fact, Arab League Resolution 1547 prohibits any Arab nation from granting them citizenship. This was done specifically to put pressure on Israel and her supporters in the West and to garner sympathy for the refugees. It certainly was not done to help the original refugees (who had exceed their official UN 10-year-limit by then).
Absolutely right. Actually, one Arab contry, namely Lebanon, did admit a large number of Palestinians. What followed was an awful civil war that reduced Beirut (known as the Paris of the Middle East) to ruins. When I lived in Houston, I had several Lebanese Christian friends who had all fought in that war, and they told me harrowing stories. Some of those stories must have reached other Arab states — hence the resolution.
Would it be fair to say that Israel’s nuclear deterrence has failed?
What many people fail to recognize is that today’s world has changed drastically: it’s no longer 1967 or the early 1990s, when the United States and Israel had an overwhelming superiority over the Arab and/or Muslim nations in terms of military power. Hezbollah alone has hundreds of thousand missiles; Iran is one of the world’s leaders in drones and other technologies; Turkey has 2 million men under arms and a pretty strong army. So further escalation is not in the best interests of Israel as its chances to defeat a combined armed forces of the Muslim/Islamist front today are very slim, to put it mildly. While 25-30 years ago the U.S. virtually enjoyed a monopoly in the realm of high-precision weapons, it no longer does now. And in no way will the United States be able to wage a three-front war (Israel-Taiwan-Ukraine), so the path of peace is the only safe option for Israel under today’s circumstances. I do not think anyone wants a WWIII which can be over the corner. I am very much concerned for the safety of our friends who moved from Moscow to Netaniah a short time ago. They have two teenage sons.
It was never meant to deter terroists. Israel’s nuclear deterrent is there as a last resort to save the country from an imminent holocaust.
I am well aware that Orthodox Jews were adamant enough insisting on the state of Israel to be established in the Holy Land, to roughly coincide geographically with the Kingdom of David and Solomon. Indeed, God gave this land to people whom Moses led out of Egyptian bondage. Yet the same God of Israel scattered the Jews around the world for their obstinancy in rejecting the message of the great prophets God raised from their midst, including God’s Son Joshua of Nazareth who predicted the wreckage of Jerusalem by Romans. Now it’s obvious with hindsight that establishing the state of Israel somewhere in Manchuria amid plentiful resources and fresh air could have been a much safer option. Jewish people would be able to settle on 10 times more land there instead of settling in an extremely hostile environment in the midst of Arabs breathing hatred towards them.