Israel's vow to defend its soldiers: what is tells us about Israel

Israel's statement that it will defend its soldiers tells us two things about Israel: the higher levels of the administration may be implicated in the war crimes and/or they are complicit in the potential war crimes and not a just or humane nation.

The first is quite easy to deduce. Often people at the top of the command chain fear the bottom speaking out about those above in return for leniency. Whether you are a drug lord or a government war criminal, it is always the upper echelon giving the orders that is the golden prize, not the drudge soldiers who carry out said orders.

Even if the above point is untrue, and the soldiers acted individually and committed war crimes of their own volition, what does it say about a society that wishes to obscure justice? In civilian law, even manslaughter – an unintentional destruction of life – is punishable; why is there a different standard in a time of war? A hallmark of Western values is that that which is large must protect that which is small, or those with the most power carry the greatest responsibility. This is still further proof of the secularism entrenched in the modern state of Israel and how removed it is from Judaism, which maintains those values.

Bill O'Reilly recently said how sometimes one must compromise your values to ensure security, to which Jon Stewart pointed out that in that case they are no longer values. It's a sad state of affairs when Israel and its defenders agree more with Bill O'Reilly than Jon Stewart.

Show Me the Pressure

We keep hearing that Israel is under increasing pressure to halt its operations in Gaza, but there is never an explanation as to what pressure is being asserted. The best the international community could do was gather in a hot sweaty UN room and bang out a ceasefire agreement after several days only to have it ignored. Sorry, there are no marks allotted for effort. Israel has now (at least) shelled a UN school, shelled a home they asked Palestinian civilians to hide in, shot at the UN contractors picking up humanitarian aid during the three hour "humanitarian corridor", and the next day shot again at a medical team trying to retrieve the body from that said attack on humanitarian workers. All in two weeks. What pressure has there been?

One story today really sums up what is going on. A CNN reporter standing atop a building in Egypt reports Israeli fighter jets passed over head, to which the Israeli officials said, "no". What is the recourse? Israel is a child with Oreos all over his face and denying he got into the cookie jar. "Eye witnesses be damned," he is saying, "I'm not lying, trust me. Don't trust the bias of the Red Cross and UN, trust me to follow my God given moral code of war."

The world's reaction so far has been to condemn the incursion into the metaphorical cookie jar, but watching and allowing the child to continue to gorge himself. Naomi Klein calls for a boycott of Israel, and although she is correct in her assessment, world leaders will certainly not take such a stance, and the continued "world pressure" we see peppered throughout articles will remain vacuous. There is no pressure because there are no repercussions, and they know that. Indeed, this is a sprint to next month's elections, which – unlike the Palestinian elections – will be recognized by the international community no matter how hegemonic the elected leader is, and will yield an abundant reward for the seeds sown with Palestinian blood.

Hopeless

I truly feel the plight of the Palestinian people is hopeless. There is a great article here by John McCarthy, but as good and ostensibly objective as the article is, I'm quite sure that all the articles and blogs published are useless. People who already agree with these opinions come away with confirmation of their preconceived notions, whereas those who disagree either would never read the article in the first place or dismiss it outright.

Just trot over to Haaretz and see if you don't feel sick to your stomach while perusing the articles. The articles' jingoistic tone is only superseded by selectively posted comments (I can assure you my comments have never been displayed).

Articles and blogs on this issue seem to primarily serve cathartic purposes, not enlightenment.

Israel: Bombing Its Own People

A majority of pro-Operation Cast Lead talking points revolve around protecting the citizens of Israel, but what are the people of Gaza? Are they not under the "care" and control of Israel? True, Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, but it retains control over its borders (both land and sea) and airspace. It is not a sovereign nation. Is it completely separate from the West Bank? With established (and a continuation of the establishment of) Israeli settlements in the West Bank, it is clearly not an independent state and Israel does control it.

So, when Israel is bombing/shooting Palestinians in defense of Israelis, they are really bombing/shooting Israelis in defense of Israelis. You cannot defend your sovereign state from itself, and as long as Palestine is not granted sovereignty over its own borders and airspace, how can this argument of defending its people stand?

The Obama Myth: One President at a Time

While many news outlets are lamenting Obama's silence over the bombardment of Gaza, at the same time they are complicit in asserting that there is only one President of the United States at any given moment.

We can clearly remember, however, a time when both John McCain and Barack Obama made public pronouncements about the Russia-Georgia conflct even prior to the White House. Additionally, Obama has made several speeches and announcements regarding financial/economic matters. Who is meant to be naive, the people or the Obama team, in believing that somehow the economy is domestic policy? How many times have we heard – quite rightfully so – that the economy and national security, particularly when it comes to "energy independence" (buzzword of the election cycle), are intertwined?

The fact of the matter is that Gaza is as much a domestic crisis as the financial crisis. America's unwavering support of a foreign government, Israel, has had consequences in the wars it is currently embroiled in, and if subjecting troops to a quagmire is not a domestic crisis, I'm not sure what is. After all, all politics is local.

Chabad: Den of Zionism

**Update: they finally posted my comment, several days after I had submitted it. Normally, my comments on other non-controversial articles have been posted within a few hours; thus, waiting several days to post this one seemed very suspicious.**

Naturally the conflict with Gaza has not only created a stir at Chabad, but also an entire new "War in Gaza" section. One pertinent Q&A was, "We are commanded to judge everyone positively, and with love. How do we apply this to the Palestinians, who wish to wipe Israel off the face of the earth?"

Within the answer was this gem: ". . . when a population is indoctrinated by its leaders, both political and spiritual, to do evil.... When a whole population is indoctrinated with hatred... Then those that this population is intent on destroying must take every measure to protect themselves."

I quoted that portion in a reply, and added that you can reread that statement and think of the Israelis. I added that name-calling (such as "terrorist" and "Nazi" [which was used in another comment]) were unproductive and that you cannot brush an entire population with a stereotype. I added that I pray for the innocent whoever and wherever they are.

The comment was rejected.

What does this tell us about the unwillingness to view things from any perspective other than the one already adhered to? It's funny how on the surface of studying Torah and Judaism in general, there is this near-myth of openness. That everything, including the existence of God, is open for question. Yet, there is a huge elephantine asterisk that ought not be overlooked: not all things and not all people can question/be questioned. Israel and the IDF are cases in point.

The crisis really does drip with irony. On Chabad, a breaking news story was "Palestinian Rocket Inflicts Heavy Damage on Chabad Rabbi’s Home"; compare that to the Washington Post article "Family Mourns 5 Daughters as Civilian Death Toll Mounts". Both are horrible realities of war, but there is an obvious disconnect when you lament the destruction of a home, and claim the family with five deceased girls somehow are not worthy of a mention and had it coming. Using Hamas as a scapegoat for acts such as this is ridiculous. By the same token, the blockade of Gaza and the refusal to recognize the democratically elected government in Gaza is just cause to launch rockets into people's homes in southern Israel. Innocence is innocence and the decisions of the leaders ought not be a scapegoat to free reign of destruction over the common people, period.

The inability to say so on Chabad's comments section just shows how much that quote of indoctrination really is apt for many Zionists. There is no middle ground, there is no relenting: there is only black and white, right and wrong, and they are more sure than they are about the existence of God that they are on the right side.

Gaza: They Asked for It?

The predominate reason espoused as to why civilian deaths are irrelevant in Israel's defense of its people is that when given the opportunity to elect a peaceful government or a militant government (Hamas), the citizens of Gaza elected the latter. Therefore, they are as responsible for the incessant rocket attacks into Israel as the terrorists themselves.

But by this logic, the people in the southern Israeli towns most affected by the onslaught are equally responsible for any decisions the Israeli government has made, such as the blockade of Gaza. True, Israel was not bombarding Gaza with homemade rockets, but blocking essential food, medicine, fuel, etc. from entering Gaza has equal ramifications, does it not?

Thus if the people of Gaza have brought this upon themselves, and Israel is guilt free, those in Gaza propelling rockets are also guilt free.

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People continue to ask how this will bring about the cessation of rockets being fire into Israel, but that is to assume that the government wants a cessation of the violence. The amount of casualties brought on by the rockets is indeed minimal if any at all, but the rockets are PR gifts from heaven. Without them, their blockade of Gaza and the bombing of "Hamas targets" is illegitimate. The road to peace assuredly means a partition of Israel: is that a certain desire of the Israeli government?

We are now beyond sixty years of conflict. To an entire generation this is a normal existence; and they know nothing different. That is a scary reality hinting that there is – and perhaps will be – no end in sight.