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Amateurs like me wade into the Israeli/Hamas war at our own peril.
I’m armed with just a slightly better-than-cursory knowledge of the Middle East, which puts me at a level beyond much of Congress, who have been saying predictably dumb things. On both sides. Not that there technically IS a Congress right now, with no sitting speaker. But whatever. Increasingly, Congress is nothing more than a pack of hammers walking around treating everything like a nail. They are about as useful as 435 social media trolls.
War is bad enough without thinking you can wage it with God on your side. There is nothing more savage than a man who kills because he thinks God wants him to. The horrific videos showing Hamas fighters slaughtering Israeli men, women, and children can only truly be understood in that context. Hamas has no real battle plan. They have no exit strategy. Throwing themselves against Israel, one of the most heavily armed nations on earth, is nothing more than a mass suicide mission. But then again, the promise of 72 virgins is quite the recruitment tool for packs of wild-eyed, incels who have been taught since birth that killing Jews is a one way ticket to paradise. These men don’t give a shit about the 2.4 million Palestinians who live in the Gaza strip, who will surely take the brunt of Israeli fury. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what they care about, other than martyrdom. There is no hate quite like the hate that is inspired by God.
The Israelis are not choirboys. They can be repressive. Even brutal. Their questionable tactics have been called out by nations around the world, including ours. But no people in the history of civilization has been more demonized than the Jews. Anti-Semitism is a scourge that has never gone away. With yet another uptick in authoritarian, right-wing regimes around the world, scapegoats must be identified. After all, the politics of grievance demand somebody to blame. So whether it’s a pack of tiki-torch wielding Trump supporters chanting “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, or Hamas fighters mowing down 260 concert goers in cold blood, the Jews are a most convenient target.
What this also means is that any criticism of Israel is automatically labeled anti-Semitic, which is not true but it IS understandable. There are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, compared to a mere 14 million Jews. According to some estimates, fully a quarter of the Muslim population is radicalized, which means they want the 14 million dead. So it’s no wonder that Israel can be a tad touchy at times.
To those of us who do not believe in God….any God….and believe that the Bible and the Koran are filled with inane gibberish that can be twisted into support for just about any atrocity you could name, the conflict has been a 3000 year old lesson in why believing in a man in the sky can cause problems. That being said, if you want to believe, that is perfectly fine. Do your thing. If so inclined, surround yourself with others who also like to do your thing. But don’t threaten to behead the rest of us.
All sorts of blame has been tossed around. President Biden’s recent decision to unfreeze $6 billion of Iranian funds frozen in South Korean banks in exchange for the release of US hostages is a wet dream for Republicans. Iran is the main financial backer of Hamas, and even though the $6 billion still sits, untouched, the optics are not good. Especially in an election year. Trump of course blamed Obama. He has yet to weigh in on how long it would take for him to stop this war. He has said it would take him one single hour to end the war in Ukraine, so it’s not like he doesn’t have the experience.
It’s also unknown right now how the vaunted Israeli intelligence service dropped the ball on this one. "No national intelligence agency is omniscient or flawless, but this is just a colossal failure," said Bruce Hoffman, a senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It's just astonishing that this could occur." "We were surprised this morning. About failures, I prefer not to talk at this point right now. We're in war. We're fighting," Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, said Saturday. Israel’s far-right government has sowed internal division, as far-right governments are apt to do, so attentions may have been focused more on pesky leftists than searching the skies for paragliders.
Hamas has hostages, whom they have promised to execute if the Israeli bombings continue. These executions will almost certainly be posted online. Fury will build. It will lead to more killings, and more hostages, and more fury, and then more killings. It is the madness of war.
Hate is taught from birth. It is sanctioned via holy books. It is learned behavior that will never be unlearned until God is removed from the equation.
In a bit…
—tf
I heard so many ghastly things from the coverage today, I just had to stop before 11am. The abject cruelty and inhumanity is breathtaking. We dont have ambassadors in key countries in the area due to the GOP's utter disfunction/incompetence here in the US. Or key military posts filled for the same reason (GOP). And the loud loud loud disinformation comes flooding in too.
I think the hate is more to blame than faith and God. I think fanatics can use any reason for their malicious acts. Violence erupts from sporting events. I'm sure you would agree sports have such good positive things that it offers kids and adults alike. So does religion it also offers positive things. Those pieces often get overlooked when those who don't subscribe point their fingers.