Where is the justice for the Jewish people?
Martin Luther King once said “the arc” of the “moral universe” is long, but eventually “it bends towards justice.” As regarding Jews’ unequivocal acceptance and safety, it has been a long time coming and not expected any time soon. This was dramatically demonstrated in the recent Israel/Hamas military showdown and the events that followed throughout the world. The shallow understandings of the hows and whys of the conflict will undoubtedly continue largely unchecked.
Hamas’s fascination with fortified underground tunnels should have given Israel a tip as to their intent well before the unleashing of some 4,000 sophisticated, guided missiles, allegedly housed within Gaza’s populated areas, near schools, hospitals, houses of worship, etc.
Each projectile launched possessed warheads laden with conventional, but nevertheless deadly explosives. Each is programmed to target and inflict maximum Israeli-civilian, not military casualties; cause human and material losses; and instill maximum fear in Jewish children who will, no doubt, carry the resulting trauma for the rest of their lives. All of Hamas’s efforts are designed to ultimately crack Israeli resolve.
Yet, for all these unconscionable actions targeting Jews, there was only a relatively tepid world response. In contrast, Hamas in Gaza said Palestinian children who died in the fighting were murdered by Israel. All the while, they directed focus away from their moral failings, having received advanced warnings of the Israeli response, which would aim to neutralize suspected missile launch sites and munitions storehouses.
Also allegedly choreographed by Hamas were images of powerless civilians in Gaza allegedly being prevented from relocation, thereby sealing their fate. Televised scenes of bloody and broken Palestinian children’s bodies inflamed viewers the world over, shifting culpability away from Hamas.
As Israel’s offensive fighters could be expected to not engage unless under direct attack, Hamas cleverly held back military actions, allowing weeping and angry Palestinians their opportunity to proclaim to the world the pains of their losses and who they viewed as responsible. This further fired emotions within the area and abroad.
Palestinians outside of Gaza took all this, plus other adverse events within Jerusalem, as justification to launch shameless attacks against civilian Jews with whom Muslims had previously coexisted peacefully in mixed communities, always framing themselves as victims and Jews as provocateurs.
Questions started to surface regarding demonstrable Palestinian efforts to build infrastructure, schools, hospitals, farms, roads and businesses in anticipation of pursuing a viable Palestinian State of their own alongside Israel.
One answer was framed in the form of a question: Why do all this work when eventually Israeli resolve is expected to weaken and they will capitulate? Then all the infrastructure and treasure Israel accumulated over the years will be turned over to Hamas for the taking, duplicating the earlier Gaza transfer.
In the interim, funds from Israel and abroad will sustain them. The world can always be counted on to blame the Jews, the perennial scapegoat, for all the evil in it. This darkness perpetuates what appears to be an unending cycle of brutality that lacks meaningful opposition, or at the very least, acceptable compromises. It will carry on in a world leaning toward the unholy, impious and profane.
The writer is author of the geopolitical thriller First the ‘Saturday People’, and then the...” and an op-ed contributor to The Miami Herald, The Washington Examiner, the Jerusalem Post, American Thinker