Posted on 12/17/2023 7:13:56 AM PST by jfd1776
We are told – weekly, daily, even hourly – we must have a ceasefire in Israel.
The press, the academics, the politicians of the world, the United Nations, all scream at Israel to stop shooting, stop fighting, give the Hamas terrorists a chance to recover, to regroup, to rebuild their terror network.
They don’t say it in those words, of course, but that would be the result. Israel has finally had to place Gaza under siege, maybe years and years too late. Israel is finally committed to wipe out one of their worst, most vicious, most malevolent enemies, the bloodthirsty terrorists known as Hamas and Hamas-sympathizers.
When you analyze the context, you see that the voices of ceasefire are not voices of peace at all; they are really the voices of continuous war.
Imagine a doctor who commits to only removing a third of a cancerous tumor. Imagine a security guard who only patrols one wall of a four-walled building, leaving the other three walls vulnerable. Imagine a rancher who only tries to catch a third of the coyotes who attack his sheep, only a third of the foxes who ransack his henhouse, allowing the rest unimpeded access at will.
Israel has been under attack, by many, many enemies, but especially by Hamas, not for weeks or months, but for generations.
Many Americans believe that this war only started on October 7, 2023. The American reader, the casual consumer of the news, will remember that there were wars in the region in 1967 and 1973, and perhaps, if reminded, will remember that there was an “intifada” in the 1990s.
But unless you really jog their memories, many, perhaps even most, will be unaware that Israel has actually lived in a state of constant war for almost its entire existence, and especially these past thirty years since the rise of Hamas in Gaza.
There have been numerous conflicts between the legitimate government of Israel and the largely Iranian-backed terrorist organizations of Hamas and its allies. Some commanded global attention, in 2001-2002 for example, and in 2014, and 2018, but the vast majority of these attacks don’t even get coverage in western newspapers.
For generations now, attacks of various kinds have come from the Gaza Strip, always targeting Israeli civilians and tourists. Sometimes these attacks were suicide bombers, detonating aboard buses, or in outdoor plazas, or indoors in pizzerias or malls. Sometimes these attacks were rockets, often handmade, jerry-rigged missiles made from irrigation piping, sometimes professional missiles from China, Turkey, Iran or Russia. Sometimes these attacks were committed by a single attacker wielding a knife or gun. And often, these attacks were thugs on rooftops or hiding behind a wall, flinging huge, heavy chunks of concrete into crowds from above, in an effort to cause a few concussions.
These attacks – almost always aimed at Israeli civilians, that’s what terrorism is – were almost nonstop for generations. What is “nonstop?” Well, it varies. These attacks occur regularly, almost routinely; rare indeed has been the month without such an attack; often they’ve been weekly or even more frequently than that. Yes, for over thirty years.
Most Israelis know more than one casualty of such attacks. A son killed by a bomb, a daughter killed by a chunk of concrete, a cousin killed by a rocket. When such attacks go on week after week, month after month, you lose track of the exact number, but you learn to commit to memory exactly where the nearest bomb shelter is, where the nearest wall is to hide your children behind. You learn to look suspiciously at everyone you don’t recognize, if he or she has a backpack, a carpetbag, a duffel bag. You know what it might be.
This experience – precisely – has been life in Israel, especially the half that’s close to Gaza, for as long as anyone can remember.
Every few years, a particularly violent set of attacks makes the international news, then Israel responds, and the story fades away.
But just because our printing presses aren’t running stories about it, that doesn’t mean that the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians ever let up. A week might go by, or maybe two, and there would be a couple more rockets, another knife attack, a shooting by someone who quickly made it back across the wall into Gaza, to fade out of sight.
Israelis have lived with this fear, this risk, from time immemorial; what right do we have to ask the Israeli government to continue to accept this insane, lethal status quo?
Now the bleeding heart voices of the global Left demand that Israel feel sorry for the civilians of Gaza, the people who have voted for Hamas, supported Hamas, cheered Hamas’ terrorist acts in the streets, chanted for genocide against the Israelis.
Now the bleeding heart voices of the global Left demand a double standard: we should give food and water, power and medicine, to the very people who have been launching lethal attacks on Israel – in violation of all the rules of war, for decades.
Where were these voices, these compassionate, caring voices, before October 7?
On October 7, suddenly, Hamas killed 1400 innocents, injured thousands more, took over 200 hostages (half of whom are most certainly dead by now).
But what about before then? Where were these voices when there was a rocket barrage or other terrorist act every week or two, year after year? Why were they silent when only Israeli civilians were being killed; why did they only start screaming when Israel started fighting back?
For a moment, we should remember the rules of war. Israel is a legitimate nation, with an army, the Israeli Defense Force, which wears uniforms and follows the rules.
Hamas is a terrorist organization; they don’t wear uniforms, they don’t follow the rules. They seek out terror targets, and try to kill or maim them: children in a playground, shoppers in a store, commuters in a bus. Hamas – the rulers of Gaza – don’t look like soldiers for a reason: they are not soldiers. They are terrorists, dressed as civilians, just masquerading as civilians.
We are told to show compassion for these “civilians” of Gaza, when so-called civilians have never shown compassion to us.
But even more than that, we are told to forget to use reason, to forget that our legitimate targets DO look like civilians. Because that’s what terrorists do; they blend in; they dress and act and look exactly like harmless civilians. There’s a reason, you know, why the rest of the arab world isn’t clamoring to welcome the residents of Gaza as refugees; the rest of the arab world knows just how vicious a large number of this crowd is.
Israel needs a free hand, to do what needs to do, to end this ongoing threat, once and for all.
They don’t just need to avenge the killings of October 7. That’s not enough. Israel needs to spare its constituents from a future that looks like their past. The rocket attacks, the knife attacks, the suicide bombers… this all must end.
Israel has the power to do it, but they are tempted to hold back. We must pray that Israel keeps up the momentum, and removes this threat once and for all.
Copyright 2023 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), are available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
Those calling for a ceasefire are Jihad Deniers.
“Support Palestine” has always been: “kill all Jews.” Always.
Those who came to power in the area never helped the Gazans, always lived off them as parasites.
And, everyone supporting these “leaders” knew it was a way to perpetuate their Jew hatred and goal to destroy the only successful state in the area : ‘Cause it was an embarrassment to all other states in the area.
I’d take them more seriously if they were anti-war in general . However these same people never mentioned a ceasefire in the Ukraine (which would at least be feasible to get both sides to stop killing each other for awhile).
They just want Israel to stop killing Muslims but don’t expect Palestinians to put down their weapons
Notice these people never implore Hamas to surrender because their chances of winning are almost nil.
[Israel should] stop fighting, give the Hamas terrorists a chance to recover, to regroup, to rebuild their terror network. They don’t say it in those words, of course, but that would be the result.
Exactly.
Meanwhile, Brandon funds Iran/Hamas atrocities against Jews and can’t find the “courage” to smash islam in the US.
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