Israel's conduct in Gaza and the West Bank is no dilemma for anti-semites and anti-zionists, they had no use for Israel in the first place. However, for many of us who didn't consider zionism a dirty word, there is a conflict. As I have written before, Israel's responses since its creation in 1948 always took the high road, at least for those of us who considered the UN partition of Palestine legitimate.
Since mid 2024, Israel's actions have become problematic. October 7th (2023) was a horrendous massacre of innocents. Israel's counter attacking against Hamas was justified, the issue is of scale. Although Hamas is an entrenched enemy totally within civilian infrastructure, the problem is how that difficulty should be approached.
The aggression on the West Bank is even more troubling, more less devoid of justification beyond Israeli politics. I was pleased to see Mike Huckabee and the UK speak up. Israel has an election at the end of October, but with their parliamentary system, the result is much more of a wild card than here.
graffiti above from Heraklion, Crete
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One must ask, Is Israel in a better place today than before Oct. 7. Are they more secure? Do they have a stronger standing in the world? Was Hamas successful in baiting them into an overreaction that has accomplished this.
ReplyDeleteThen one must also ask, did the present government know about this attack and decide to allow it to accomplish some bigger goal, like greater Israel?
Can pure revenge and a dependence on US power be a sustainable foreign policy?
I wonder if the population of Israel is declining or increasing?
Ray@10:22: Israel's standing in the world is at an all time low. Although no fan of Netanyahu, I cannot believe that he had before hand knowledge of the attack. Such warnings are probably continuous. I believe that there has been an increase in the "exodus".
ReplyDeleteI think the bigger question is what did the 78 years of responses at “scale” get Israel?
ReplyDeleteTo me, all it did was give those wanted the Jews dead an opportunity to spread their hate, grow their numbers and arm themselves better.
The Jewish people did not ask for the attack on October 7th, nor the many smaller massacres that happened for decades before that. Each one cost the lives of innocent Israeli men, women and children.
I say it’s about time they responded at something ABOVE “scale”. They finally have THEIR boots on the terrorists necks, and there’s no way in hell they should remove it.
According to the Jerusalem post this article suggests otherwise. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-907896
ReplyDeleteanon@1:26: I am quickly moving away from anonymous comments. The anonymous box can be used if signed in the text with what I consider a credible name. Google options allow for a pseudonym, which would provide a repeating "handle", and lastly your actual name for a handle.
ReplyDeleteRay@1:38: For a small country, Israel has many papers, news outlets with various "slants." I have no use for Netanyahu, but cannot believe that he purposefully allowed what happen.
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