The terrorist Hamas committed nauseating horrors against Israeli Jews on October 7, 2023 and committed these inhumane atrocities joyfully and proudly. Then they retreated to the shelter of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza strip. We are witnessing a principle of Machiavelli playing out now. Machiavelli counselled "The Prince" to do all of the terrible things to people on one day, and then do a few good things spaced out over a period of time. Because people will respond to the terrible things once but respond to the good things often over time.
Hamas's terrors will never be forgotten by Israeli Jews nor Jews around the world. And the world was shocked for one day, and a bit longer. But now we see day after day the Israeli defensive attacks that sadly include innocents in Gaza and respond day after day to their pain, and it is too easy to see the two horrors - civilian deaths - as equivalent. But one was an attack that targeted civilians, elderly, children, babies - and the other is an attack trying to avoid the innocent but since the terrorists use the innocent as protective shields, the world's natural feelings of compassion can easily turn against the Israeli defensive attacks, and turn against Jews around the world.
It is deeply horrible to watch Gaza be destroyed and civilians being inadvertently killed. I think a smart thing I read was from David French:
"As a former JAG (or Judge Advocate General’s Corps) officer embedded with a combat arms unit in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, I know that you can’t simply merge law and tactics and declare that everything that is legally and tactically sound is also moral, much less wise. We veterans know that the challenge for the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza isn’t simply to win the fight with Hamas within the laws of war. There is a third imperative, one that will define the soldiers who fight and the nation they defend for years to come: Do not destroy your soul.
This is much easier said than done."
Seems to me the only real path forward is to ignore the endless fights about who should be driven from the land, look only to the future rather than the past - and the only future that has ever made sense to me is a two-state solution. The Islamic extremists have always said NO and there are some Israeli extremists who also say NO.
So, here we are - again. I pray that all of the Middle East opens their hearts.
