Never Again?
Only if the Israel people can nerve themselves to face the unpalatable facts
Postmodern progressivism aggressively brands itself as the party of goodness, compassion, sensitivity, empathy, inclusion humanity, democracy, and all such good things. But not where the Jews are concerned.
When Joe Biden was running for president, he claimed that one of the things that impelled him to do so was “Charlottesville,” the Unite the Right rally/riot that happened back in 2017. It was an ugly spectacle, particularly in its antisemitism, and Biden of course pinned the blame on Donald Trump. But it turns out that whether antisemitic hate and terrorism are bad depends on the perpetrators. If they’re white nationalists and neo-Nazis, that’s bad. But if they’re “brown people” fighting colonial settler imperialism in “Palestine”—well, those Jews got what was coming, that’s all. There’s really no two-state solution on the “anti-Zionist” agenda. Those people want the land between the river and the sea to be cleansed of Jews: judenrein as the Nazis put it.
The phoniness of Biden’s stand against antisemitism in 2020 is obvious today in his administration’s craven and despicable response to the bloody 10/7 Hamas pogrom and the war it started. At first, he and his people pretended to be stalwart allies of Israel. But then came the turn and today the Administration is acting as if the whole thing was really Israel’s fault. Asked by a reporter if he thought that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing enough to secure a Gaza ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas, our absurd president responded with a terse “No.”
Biden didn’t explain what Netanyahu should be doing. That’s because he can’t.
The truth is that there’s no hostage deal to be had. In exchange for the release of the hostages it holds, Hamas is demanding Israel’s surrender to its maximum demands—leaving that bloodthirsty death cult free to regain control over Gaza and to prosecute its genocidal campaign against the Jewish state. No Israeli government, whoever heads it, can agree to a “deal” like that.
There are, indeed, many people in Israel who refuse to face the facts—who demand, in effect, that Israel should make any sacrifice, agree to any demand, for the sake of the hostages’ safe return. In a small country where, it seems, everybody knows everybody else, this is understandable, if not excusable. But let’s be honest about just what it is they’re demanding: that the salvation of current victims be purchased with the lives of future victims.
Israel got where it is today by adopting a policy, which I understand to be based in Jewish religious tradition, that the nation has a moral obligation to ransom captives. Does this, however, remain a moral obligation regardless of the price demanded? If Hamas were asking for a cash ransom, the point would be arguable. But Hamas is demanding much more in exchange for the release of the hostages. Hamas demands that the Jewish state abandon its foundational principle, its raison d'être: Never Again. If Israel were to bow to this demand, it would be the prelude to one, ten, many 10/7s.
Nor should the Israeli people suppose that the abandonment of their country’s foundational principle will earn for them the good opinion of the so-called world community. The dismissive attitude toward the horrors of 10/7, the open hostility toward Israel and Jews everywhere, the evident desire of so many people around the world to see the Jewish state eradicated, can be changed by no such self-sacrificial gesture. That would only whet the appetite of those with a taste for Jewish blood.
It grieves me to say that even here in America, the rising tide of antisemitism threatens this country’s Jews. The next president of the United States may be a person who is deeply hostile to Israel, and who surrounds herself with antisemites. The people of Israel should not be fooled by any soothing thing that Kamala Harris may say now. She’s no friend of the Jews. And in that, she faithfully reflects the attitude of American progressives.
Machiavelli has been much criticized for his cynical analysis of politics. But it’s hard to argue with his observation that for a prince, it’s much safer to be feared than to be loved. He reasoned that love is a thing freely given that can equally freely be withdrawn, whereas fear involves the self-interest of the fearful and is therefore more reliable. What Israel needs at this moment is a dose of Machiavellian Realpolitik: a restoration of deterrence by demonstrating to its enemies what they should fear. That means winning the war against Hamas in Gaza, as well as the impending war against Hezbollah in the north.
It also means that the ransom of the hostages held by Hamas cannot be Israel’s overriding priority, for that would be tantamount to surrender and even, perhaps, the beginning of the end of the Jewish state. Is that really what the demonstrators who are denouncing Netanyahu and screaming for a ceasefire want? Surely not—which leads me to conclude that a large fraction of Israel’s population is in flight from reality. They’re certainly not behaving as patriots.
I totally agree. Nobody is willing to sacrifice their own family member, nor would I be, but that is not how you can fight a war and save a nation. Everyone's sons and daughters risk their life when the country is at war, otherwise a war could never be won.
As for the world's approval, Israel will never have that except perhaps if Israel is destroyed everyone will be terribly sorry afterwards and there will be memorials and education programmes saying "never again".
I wish Israel had defied international pressure and taken the risk to go hard into Rafah when they first had the chance. They knew what was at stake - or did they? It sometimes seems like even the Israelis have not fully grasped how monstrous Hamas is, how unreasonable, cruel and pitiless, amoral and filled with hate.
Non-religious Gentile American here— I am of the opinion that Israel has to accept, and I wish our president would also accept, that the idea of a Palestinian state has to die. Like die hard. I have suspected since the late 90’s and more recently since Oct 7, that there is no real honest political movement in Palestine that sees a state of Israel as a Jewish state. They have shown NO desire to build trust. The withdrawal of Israel from Gaza less than 10yrs ago could have been a starting point. Instead it leads to a culture of self annihilation.
The most humane thing is to evacuate Gaza civilians to other countries, and work on a similar situation in the West Bank. Palestinians need to learn from what Thucydides calls “the school of life”.
West Bank Palestinians could have seen Oct 7 as a stepping stone to bridging peace by denouncing the incident and calling for hostage releases and ending their armed struggle.
Too bad they can’t see anything but paradise as they leave their lives on earth to be cannon fodder for hate.