Israel says war, and so it is. The retaliatory invasion of Gaza has by now become the Sherman’s March of the 21st century, brutal, unyielding, and as cruel, if not crueler than the actions of its hostage-taking adversaries.
But a war carries with it consequences, and these are too often overlooked by the tediously righteous West, which sees support for Israel as a holy mission. And the holy must be praised.
Tell that to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to Houthi fighters in Yemen who have lately expanded their “terror” campaign, with Iran-backed Hezbollah playing the drone game in and around Jordan while the Houthi fire on shipping in the Red Sea, notwithstanding U.S. and British efforts to bring them to heel.
Monsters, say the forces of good.
But are they?
In a war, no, not really.
They are the allies of Hamas, however loose the alliance, in an effort to put up some resistance, albeit mostly symbolic, to the “good horror” the Gaza invasion has come to represent.
All this returns us to the old bromide: One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, a line used often by Zionist crusaders in the late forties, blowing British interests to ensure their flight from Palestine. Guerrillas such as Menachem Begin later became heroes, Jewish terrorists for the just.
One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, a line used often by Zionist crusaders in the late forties, blowing British interests to ensure their flight from Palestine.
So it was and so be it, at least if you’re wearing Israeli goggles.
But wear history’s eye-ware a bit differently, accepting the notion that that there are in fact two sides to the Palestine coin, and good vs. evil turns murkier.
From that murk emerges the simple realty that in a war, at least one fought in a relatively confined space, there are few neutrals.
This means Hezbollah, the Yemen shooters , and yes, Hamas, are entitled to cause what havoc they can. They are the disjointed “armies” of resistance – and this is said knowing full well Hamas set things in motion with its October bloodletting.
To those in the militant Arab world, complicit non-Arab Iran, fire can only be fought with fire.
Which leads back to Israel and its choice not to exact reprisals but start a conflagration intended to secure Gaza once and for all, defanging Hamas in the process.
Again, so be it, no matter how unpleasant.
Yet don’t expect enemies to fold, enemies whose firepower is a trifle compared to Israel, the U.S. and other Jewish state allies.
The enemies do what they can.
Call them monsters, these enemies, but remember yet again that the coin has two sides.
Remember also that war is war, and more war – easy to forget among all the muck and all the mire that the Syrian civil war continues to rage and that American forces still patrol parts of Iraq, exposing them to drone and missile strikes from Hezbollah enclaves in Lebanon and Jordan, as well as from Syrian wildings who brook no borderlines.
And if you’re up to ring some more, please bear in mind, finally but certainly, that there are no true good guys, only losers.
Who might be the losers?
Take a peek at Gaza and behold them.
Amen.
