My name is David Levenstein Amory, and I am a Jew. I don’t usually begin my writing with AA-style introductions, but it seemed like a good idea in this case. That’s because my intention is to respond to Naeema Naqeeb, who recently used all her rhetorical tools to assail Israel’s role in the Gaza war, and with it the complicity of the United States. In general I like rhetoric. I get antsy only when the writer seems naïve. I had previously vowed to myself to stay away from this loaded subject, but that naivete leaves me no choice.
I’d like to go about my rebuttal by making what I think are some key points. My own rhetorical device is the question, and most of mine involve those I think Hamas irresponsibly failed to ask itself, or worse still, knowingly and cruelly bypassed as far too uncomfortable.
Okay then.
My own rhetorical device is the question, and most of mine involve those I think Hamas irresponsibly failed to ask itself, or worse still, knowingly and cruelly bypassed as far too uncomfortable.
Let’s assume you are a putative liberation organization that uses terrorist methods to obtain its ends, which in this case is the eradication of the Jewish state of Israel, so you can form your own national entity. You have ununiformed soldiers, commanders, and troops, plus weapons, the latter mostly courtesy of Iran, your biggest benefactor.
You decide it’s finally time for something spectacular, so you stage a raid in which you kill hundreds of the mostly unarmed enemy and take hundreds of others as hostages. It’s a sneak attack that looks every bit like an act of war. The Gaza Strip, where you did your bloody job, is, from your perspective, your land. It was run by Egypt until that nation started what would be a futile war, now known as the Six-Day War, in which Israel repulsed and decimated Syria, Jordan, and, of course, Egypt, which was forced to surrender Gaza.
Did you, Arab-liberation seekers, learn your lesson?
Did you for a moment consider that any massive raid on Israel would provoke reprisals that would punish your civilian citizenry?
Did you consider — with the fate of your people in the balance — that the enemy you proposed to massively provoke was led by Benjamin Netanyahu, a man with a Putin-like (I admit it) confrontational side, politically dependent on allies with an unabashed “cancel-them-all” view of resistant Palestinians?
Apparently not, since you went ahead with the murderous raid with prideful zeal.
As for what happened next, no one who knows Israel has any right to feel much surprise.
Mr. Netanyahu, seeing an ideal opening to remove a festering thorn from his country’s side, did not say — and please listen very carefully here — that he would take “appropriate” action in response to the attack. In fact, he left appropriateness out of the equation.
The two words he used instead had the ominous tone even dummy terrorists might understand: Mighty vengeance.
When you reflect on the situation in Gaza now, kindly review those two words, fiercer even than anything America came up with after 9/11.
Mighty means you won’t forget this, and vengeance, at once savage and amoral, carries with it the unapologetic prospect of collateral damage — which includes, yes, civilians of all ages, down to the very last child. Vengeance is not built to pay outrage much mind.
And soon thereafter my Israel embarked on the follow-through, a take-no-prisoners military assault on Gaza (with Lebanon now also in the mix).
No one was spared.
Not civilians, kids, cats, or dogs.
The two words he used instead had the ominous tone even dummy terrorists might understand: Mighty vengeance.
Not hospitals or refugee centers.
Why?
Because you, Hamas, have long known how to mix your so-called freedom fighters with the population, using even shelters and medical facilities as shields.
Your actions in killing innocents and holding hostages begged for the brutal. And the brutal you have gotten, in spades.
The war isn’t just a war. Not anymore. It is an effort not only to destroy Hamas, which may be impossible, but to leave an imprint on any Palestinians who might in the future wish to poke the sleeping giant — which of course is never asleep.
If Israel bears the moral burden of leaving kids without parents, Hamas bears the burden of leaving its entire Gaza population open to a war it should have known would turn nasty beyond words. Hamas and Hezbollah in essence shouted “Come get us,” and the results are painful to all.
As for the complicit evil-doer, American President Joe Biden, what on earth did you expect? An ally who laces words and weapons of support with caveats? An ally is an ally, and the U.S. has had Israel’s back for decades. It’s not up to the president to publicly express humanitarian misgivings in the middle of a military campaign. That’s for back-channel chats only. Cry foul if you want, but that’s war. And this war, I stress again, is intended to make a point. That’s what vengeance is all about: to settle scores.
So, what was Hamas thinking?
If Israel bears the moral burden of leaving kids without parents, Hamas bears the burden of leaving its entire Gaza population open to a war it should have known would turn nasty beyond words.
It was thinking Iran’s thoughts: make a statement and ask questions later, or not at all. Innocent civilians? Why worry too much, and in any event, Israel is too moral to blow up hospitals. Big mistake, that one, to underestimate your enemy’s capacity for rawness, especially under razed-earth Netanyahu, a man I disagree with at times but who can’t be faulted for failing to state his vengeful intentions.
In all this I don’t wish to assail Naeema Naqeeb’s passionate sense of right and wrong, only to suggest that in wars where sworn enemies and civilians don’t stand out one from the other, bad things will happen. Uniforms were invented to make moral war easier. Israel’s position has and remains “we can’t always tell,” and that in turn means children can go up in a puff of smoke faster than it takes to say “oops.”
And, by the way, if you want to throw darts at Biden, let’s also spare a few for Egypt, that one-time owner of Gaza now mostly uninterested in the fate of Palestinian children. Solidarity, right?
It is true on the face of things that a sobbing kid half-burned to a crisp by a bomb is a victim? Yes. Is it true the flames that burned him were generated by Israeli weapons? Yes.
Is that kid’s place in a morbid line of fire Israel’s fault? No.
The bonfire was lit by an organization that either because of stupidity or callousness decided on a course of action destined to create a reign of callousness.
From which even kids are denied shelter.