This is a very confusing article written by a very confused author. And I am being generous when I use the word confused, because the many lies presented as self-evident truths turn what on the face of it seems a denunciation of left-wing Jews' invocation of the Holocaust to justify their denunciation of Israel into a criticism of Israel, if not Judaism itself, from an equally tendentious perspective. One example: " At last year’s Academy Awards, director Jonathan Glazer invoked his own Jewishness and the memory of the Holocaust to condemn its cynical weaponization by Israel’s Right-wing government." Reading this sentence one would think the author agrees with the statement that Israel's government is best described as "Right-wing," and that being "Right-wing" with a capital R of course "its cynical weaponization of the Holocaust" is a fact not to be disputed. What the author does dispute is Jonathan Glazer's use of the Holocaust to denounce Israel.
Another example: "The playwright Tony Kushner put a finer point on it: “The history of the Holocaust, the history of Jewish suffering must not be used as an excuse (for Israel’s war in Gaza) Kushner said. “It is a misappropriation of, of what it means to be a Jew, what the Holocaust meant ... Who doesn’t agree with that?” And the author goes on to write: "But what exactly is being called upon when these people invoke their Jewishness? Or by “If Not Now” when they invoke their “Jewish values”? It’s hard to believe they are referring to religious values, which offer a confusing muddle of admirable precepts and ancient, reactionary theology."
To this I would say the first point to take issue with Kushner is that Jewish suffering, especially as exemplified in the Holocaust, is not used to justify Israel's war in Gaza. Palestinians' invasion of Israel and their wanton slaughter and rape of Israeli citizens, men, women and children, is the justification. Only progressives are quick to drag the Holocaust into the equation, though the author himself seems to think that many Israelis invoke the Holocaust in the sense of Never Again when thinking about the war In Gaza and understandably, if not rightly, so. Israel, until Trump arrived on the scene, had been abandoned by the West in the conduct of its war in Gaza, and the author would have done well to point that out. But in addition to that is the strange phrase of the author about Jewish religious values being nothing but a "confusing muddle of admirable precepts and ancient, reactionary theology." In fact, the Hebrew Bible is the template of western literature and the founding document of the Jewish people, with many a political lesson for Jews and the modern West.
And so we come to the nub of the article, which is to point out that "there are no good lessons to draw from the Holocaust." And the nub for the author being that he is free as a Jew to reflect on the fate of history which landed him in America, thus enabling him to be as progressive as he likes without any indebtedness to his Jewish ancestry, traumatic or prophetic. I must confess that I too think the Holocaust is not necessary for a Jew to identify with Israel and for any normal decent person to be on Israel's side when it comes to the war in Gaza. I also certainly do not think the Holocaust should enter into the logic of Jews who denounce Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza. I do think, however, that the trauma of the Holocaust is so deep for Jews they have not yet begun to plumb its depths, and this trauma shows up in the less than ruthless campaign the Jews in Israel have conducted with respect to their Palestinian enemies in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. That statement may surprise some readers, but any normal country would have decimated Hamas and the Palestinian Authority for their murder and duplicity long ago. That the author thinks that under other conditions he "too might be a traumatized Israeli invoking the Shoah to justify Israel’s actions in Gaza" is simply a phrase as trite as it is slanderous.
The author clearly thinks of himself as a progressive Jew and wants to be able to act thereon without having to bear and plumb the weight of Jewish history, Holocaust included. Bully for him. But he is wrong on Israel, wrong on the war in Gaza, and like so many people has no idea what to think about the Holocaust. Understandably on the latter point, for it is in so many ways unspeakable even when one has studied it. Perhaps one takeaway is that the Holocaust wrecked western civilization and we are living that wreckage, to which the stupid and insipid moralism directed Israel's way by the elites of western democracies testifies.
Amen. Halleluiah. Jumpin' Jehoshaphat. It ain't just me. "This is a very confusing article written by a very confused author". Naturally as it is a very intelligent writer they can easily edit the article by 50% and clarify their key 3 or 4 points for example?
I'm having some trouble understanding what you mean when you speak of "... a traumatized Israeli invoking the Shoah to justify Israel’s actions in Gaza."
What actions in Gaza do you believe are vile and being justified by the memory of the Shoah?
The problem here is that liberal/progressive left wing American politics consumes everything in its reach. Jews sucked into the Marxist-inspired ideology are left wing first, Jews second. That is why they pathetically demonstrate with those sub-animals which seek to annihilate them. They are the "good" Jews, destined to die by the Muslim sword or knife because they have separated themselves from their brothers and sisters to repair the world. These "Jews" will never be Maccabees or Hagenah. They will silently ride in the cattle cars headed to the concentration camps, wondering why, we supported you. 'Never Again' means no more holocausts, but, more importantly, it means not being a victim. We should never apologize for having the will to live, to slay your enemy before he slays you.
You lost me at "collective punishment". Israel is at war with Hamas. The war was started by Hamas. Civilians die during wars. Israel makes more efforts than other countries to minimize civilian casualties. Would you say that any war is "collective punishment".
Well said Stephen Schecter. If I may add, there are lessons for Jews to learn from the Holocaust:
1- Jews collectively and individually must never place their security in the hands of others.
2- If someone or a people seek to kill you, you kill them first and unapologetically. If someone or a people hits you first as the Muslims did on 10/7, you fight back, don’t hold back and show no mercy to your enemies. “Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."
- Adam Smith
Now some uniquely American lessons to consider:
3- The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution uniquely guarantees Americans and American Jews (unlike Jews anywhere else, including Israel) the ability not to have to put our security in the hands of others because we can arm ourselves against those who would do us harm. This is a fundamental right denied to Israelis, although they are getting better on this, the right to be armed is not nearly as extensive in Israel as it is in the United States and has still not been enshrined in permanent un-revocable law. As an American it is my God given right and I exercise it 24/7 in my home and when I walk out my door. I will bet that my armory is better stocked than 99.99% of Israeli citizens’ homes. This American will never be forced into a box car or driven as a hostage into hostile territory. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
4- Leftist American Jews, the majority of whom don’t support the 2A and actively lobby and vote to limit 2A rights, believing guns are best kept in the hands of government agents, haven’t learned anything from the Holocaust or Jewish history and their ignorance leads to their treason. In their anti-2A political advocacy they seek to disarm their fellow Americans both Jew and non-Jew alike and put their fellow Jews back in the position they were in prior to the Holocaust, relying on others for their safety. There is no higher treason for a Jew to perpetuate against another Jew.
4- Those leftist Jews through their treason have lost any right they may have had to contribute to the Jewish conversation regarding Jewish security or war matters; really on any matters. They are leftists first and last, and only Jews when they want to shield their treasonous leftist ideology from criticism. Then they break out the antisemitism shield or when they use their circumstances of birth (being born to a Jewish mother) as an opportunity to further their leftist ideology at the expense of and to the detriment of other Jews. To call them Jews is a misnomer. That’s why there are American Jews advocating for the Muslims in their cause to exterminate Israel’s Jews; that’s why there are vile Jews in Boston who on 10/8 before the Israeli bodies were even cold and weeks before Israel even responded to the barbarity of 10/7 were out there protesting on behalf of the Muslim savages who perpetrated the barbarism. The only more vile creature than a Jew who would protest on behalf of the Muslim savage is the Muslim protesting justifying their fellow Muslims’ savage depravity.
5- Leftist American Jews are traitors twice over. They reject America’s foundational principles and in doing so they would expose their fellow Americans and specifically American Jews to arbitrary actions of those who may not have their best interests in mind or may seek out right to do them harm and without a way to fight back. For that they are domestic enemies of all Americans, both Jew and non-Jew alike and in their choice of leftist political ideology they are useful idiots of the enemies of the Jewish body politic.
I hold nothing but contempt for them, contempt so strong that were I not Jewish, Jews would consider me antisemitic. The leftist Jew, be they American or Israeli are our Kapos; vile creatures who should only face condemnation.
Tony Kushner may be a Jewish leftist but JVP is not Jewish. It is a sham organization created by Jew hating Islamists and their leftist supporters with a few Jewish Jew haters as tokens.
The lesson of the holocaust is to believe our enemies when they tell us who they are and what their intentions are and that Israel must be armed to the teeth.
I have nothing but disgust and contempt at left wing "Jews" living in opulence inside their LA mansions without having to race to shelters as the sirens whale from incoming missiles. And not having 4000 terrorists invading their communities and grabbing families from their homes slaughtering and kidnapping them and not having their kids being mowed down while at a music festival, all while lecturing the Israelis about how NOT to respond.
What the Israelis are doing in Gaza has nothing to do with holocaust trauma and everything to do with the current dangers facing Israelis and what hamas intends to do in the future over and over again unless they are stopped.
Sadly, the phenomenon of the self hating “kapo Jew” is not uncommon throughout Jewish history. Whether through profound ignorance or some deep seated psychological need (ie Stockholm Syndrome) such individuals turn their backs on their own people, land, culture and history. What they never understand until it is too late is that there is no great success in being on the last train to Auschwitz.
Thanks for writing this, you make a very good point. The only way towards peace is to end the focus on the past, and to look for the path forward that best protects the rights of all the people living in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
The rights the residents of the West Bank and Gaza seek is the right to destroy Israel and murder all its people. So forgive me if I conclude they have no rights at all.
“We shall never stop until we can go back home and Israel is destroyed. … The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromises or mediations. … The goal of this violence is the elimination of Zionism from Palestine in all its political, economic and military aspects. … We don’t want peace, we want victory. Peace for us means Israel’s destruction and nothing else.”
These useful idiots are nothing more than leftist radicals with Jewish last names. Many are more likely practicing Satanists than Jews.
And if it weren’t for the filth in the media the truth about who they really are would be exposed instead of this false narrative that they represent a small faction of traitors to their religion and country financed by George Soros.
“From bitter personal experience, my mother is committed to the “never again” mantra but not as it is so often invoked as either an overly confident prediction or an arrogant expression of a newfound invincibility. She has studied and experienced enough of Jewish history to be wary of its repeated patterns of tragedy and dislocation, and the chronic failures of overconfidence. To her, “never again” is a pledge to never again naively believe that it cannot happen here; that the cultured world will stand up against the ugliness of antisemitism; that Jews can outsource their defense to others, even friends. “Never again” is a reminder that allows her to recognize past evils in current foes.”
What? There are so many false and confusing conclusions in this essay that I don’t know where to start. So I won’t. See @Stephen Shechter below for an honest attempt at pointing out the lies and libels.
Not only is the article a twisted bunch of words but Stephen Schecter’s gibberish got my head spinning like Charlie McCarthy. I’m buzzed without drinking.
"I ended up in America, rather than Israel, and that if the chips had fallen slightly differently, I too might be a traumatized Israeli invoking the Shoah to justify Israel’s actions in Gaza."
Israel's actual "actions" in Gaza are more intimated than actually defined in terms of cause and prosecution. The question that needs to be asked is whether or not they are based on an (oft-maintained, extreme) right-wing government pursuing an extreme right-wing agenda for purely self-serving political reasons or are they military actions taken for legitimate national security reasons?
Given Hamas' charter, its action on Oct 7th, its public statements that it will repeat Oct. 7th until Israel is obliterated and its people wiped out, is there any ethical or legal justification for Israel not to have the objective to destroy Hamas?
Yes, innocents die in a war. War is not a football field: it is an open-air abattoir. The statistics emerging from this conflict reveal that the collateral damage inflicted on the population is the lowest of any modern urban warfare — a 1:2 ratio. The figures are especially significant as Hamas fighters wear civilian clothing rather than military uniforms to blend into the civilian population, thus using civilians as human shields. They also convert civilian houses and infrastructure into weapons depots, command posts, and battlefields.
So, is Israel or its government being right-wing hawks when they take decisive action to destroy this mortal threat to their existence? Was FD Roosevelt a right wing extremist when he gave his "Day of Infamy" speech to Congress in 1941? Was Churchill a right wing extremist when he delivered his June 1940 "We shall fight on the beaches" speech to the House of Commons?
Or were they nations declaring an intent to protect their people against ruthless aggressors bent on their destruction?
Would any country in the same situation do otherwise? Have they ever done otherwise?
"I am not against collective punishment as a weapon of war because of my Jewishness; I am against it because it is wrong."
The implication is that Israel is engaged in inflicting collective punishment on Gazans (also popularly expressed in the media as Israel waging war against Gaza). The claim is a willful distortion of fact.
For the reasons cited above, Israel is patently NOT waging war against a civilian population. In fact, its firefights are first cleared by lawyers to ensure the actions comply with the Laws of Armed Conflict according to International Humanitarian Law (IHL).
Claims to the contrary by non-Jews and most egregiously by "woke, intersectional" Jews themselves reveals they are indulging in prejudice because no such standards are applied to other countries locked in mortal combat for their very survival.
By their vocal, public stance, using their Jewishness to denounce Jews protecting their homeland, their families, their lives, they define the Yiddish term "Shanda".
Lastly, as to what role the Holocaust plays in this war of words, there is an old expression: ""Kick me once, shame on you. Kick me twice, shame on me." Israeli Jews have learnt the lesson well. DIasporic Jews are relearning it.
This is a very confusing article written by a very confused author. And I am being generous when I use the word confused, because the many lies presented as self-evident truths turn what on the face of it seems a denunciation of left-wing Jews' invocation of the Holocaust to justify their denunciation of Israel into a criticism of Israel, if not Judaism itself, from an equally tendentious perspective. One example: " At last year’s Academy Awards, director Jonathan Glazer invoked his own Jewishness and the memory of the Holocaust to condemn its cynical weaponization by Israel’s Right-wing government." Reading this sentence one would think the author agrees with the statement that Israel's government is best described as "Right-wing," and that being "Right-wing" with a capital R of course "its cynical weaponization of the Holocaust" is a fact not to be disputed. What the author does dispute is Jonathan Glazer's use of the Holocaust to denounce Israel.
Another example: "The playwright Tony Kushner put a finer point on it: “The history of the Holocaust, the history of Jewish suffering must not be used as an excuse (for Israel’s war in Gaza) Kushner said. “It is a misappropriation of, of what it means to be a Jew, what the Holocaust meant ... Who doesn’t agree with that?” And the author goes on to write: "But what exactly is being called upon when these people invoke their Jewishness? Or by “If Not Now” when they invoke their “Jewish values”? It’s hard to believe they are referring to religious values, which offer a confusing muddle of admirable precepts and ancient, reactionary theology."
To this I would say the first point to take issue with Kushner is that Jewish suffering, especially as exemplified in the Holocaust, is not used to justify Israel's war in Gaza. Palestinians' invasion of Israel and their wanton slaughter and rape of Israeli citizens, men, women and children, is the justification. Only progressives are quick to drag the Holocaust into the equation, though the author himself seems to think that many Israelis invoke the Holocaust in the sense of Never Again when thinking about the war In Gaza and understandably, if not rightly, so. Israel, until Trump arrived on the scene, had been abandoned by the West in the conduct of its war in Gaza, and the author would have done well to point that out. But in addition to that is the strange phrase of the author about Jewish religious values being nothing but a "confusing muddle of admirable precepts and ancient, reactionary theology." In fact, the Hebrew Bible is the template of western literature and the founding document of the Jewish people, with many a political lesson for Jews and the modern West.
And so we come to the nub of the article, which is to point out that "there are no good lessons to draw from the Holocaust." And the nub for the author being that he is free as a Jew to reflect on the fate of history which landed him in America, thus enabling him to be as progressive as he likes without any indebtedness to his Jewish ancestry, traumatic or prophetic. I must confess that I too think the Holocaust is not necessary for a Jew to identify with Israel and for any normal decent person to be on Israel's side when it comes to the war in Gaza. I also certainly do not think the Holocaust should enter into the logic of Jews who denounce Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza. I do think, however, that the trauma of the Holocaust is so deep for Jews they have not yet begun to plumb its depths, and this trauma shows up in the less than ruthless campaign the Jews in Israel have conducted with respect to their Palestinian enemies in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. That statement may surprise some readers, but any normal country would have decimated Hamas and the Palestinian Authority for their murder and duplicity long ago. That the author thinks that under other conditions he "too might be a traumatized Israeli invoking the Shoah to justify Israel’s actions in Gaza" is simply a phrase as trite as it is slanderous.
The author clearly thinks of himself as a progressive Jew and wants to be able to act thereon without having to bear and plumb the weight of Jewish history, Holocaust included. Bully for him. But he is wrong on Israel, wrong on the war in Gaza, and like so many people has no idea what to think about the Holocaust. Understandably on the latter point, for it is in so many ways unspeakable even when one has studied it. Perhaps one takeaway is that the Holocaust wrecked western civilization and we are living that wreckage, to which the stupid and insipid moralism directed Israel's way by the elites of western democracies testifies.
Amen. Halleluiah. Jumpin' Jehoshaphat. It ain't just me. "This is a very confusing article written by a very confused author". Naturally as it is a very intelligent writer they can easily edit the article by 50% and clarify their key 3 or 4 points for example?
I agree; totally confusing.
I'm having some trouble understanding what you mean when you speak of "... a traumatized Israeli invoking the Shoah to justify Israel’s actions in Gaza."
What actions in Gaza do you believe are vile and being justified by the memory of the Shoah?
The problem here is that liberal/progressive left wing American politics consumes everything in its reach. Jews sucked into the Marxist-inspired ideology are left wing first, Jews second. That is why they pathetically demonstrate with those sub-animals which seek to annihilate them. They are the "good" Jews, destined to die by the Muslim sword or knife because they have separated themselves from their brothers and sisters to repair the world. These "Jews" will never be Maccabees or Hagenah. They will silently ride in the cattle cars headed to the concentration camps, wondering why, we supported you. 'Never Again' means no more holocausts, but, more importantly, it means not being a victim. We should never apologize for having the will to live, to slay your enemy before he slays you.
You lost me at "collective punishment". Israel is at war with Hamas. The war was started by Hamas. Civilians die during wars. Israel makes more efforts than other countries to minimize civilian casualties. Would you say that any war is "collective punishment".
Well said Stephen Schecter. If I may add, there are lessons for Jews to learn from the Holocaust:
1- Jews collectively and individually must never place their security in the hands of others.
2- If someone or a people seek to kill you, you kill them first and unapologetically. If someone or a people hits you first as the Muslims did on 10/7, you fight back, don’t hold back and show no mercy to your enemies. “Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."
- Adam Smith
Now some uniquely American lessons to consider:
3- The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution uniquely guarantees Americans and American Jews (unlike Jews anywhere else, including Israel) the ability not to have to put our security in the hands of others because we can arm ourselves against those who would do us harm. This is a fundamental right denied to Israelis, although they are getting better on this, the right to be armed is not nearly as extensive in Israel as it is in the United States and has still not been enshrined in permanent un-revocable law. As an American it is my God given right and I exercise it 24/7 in my home and when I walk out my door. I will bet that my armory is better stocked than 99.99% of Israeli citizens’ homes. This American will never be forced into a box car or driven as a hostage into hostile territory. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
4- Leftist American Jews, the majority of whom don’t support the 2A and actively lobby and vote to limit 2A rights, believing guns are best kept in the hands of government agents, haven’t learned anything from the Holocaust or Jewish history and their ignorance leads to their treason. In their anti-2A political advocacy they seek to disarm their fellow Americans both Jew and non-Jew alike and put their fellow Jews back in the position they were in prior to the Holocaust, relying on others for their safety. There is no higher treason for a Jew to perpetuate against another Jew.
4- Those leftist Jews through their treason have lost any right they may have had to contribute to the Jewish conversation regarding Jewish security or war matters; really on any matters. They are leftists first and last, and only Jews when they want to shield their treasonous leftist ideology from criticism. Then they break out the antisemitism shield or when they use their circumstances of birth (being born to a Jewish mother) as an opportunity to further their leftist ideology at the expense of and to the detriment of other Jews. To call them Jews is a misnomer. That’s why there are American Jews advocating for the Muslims in their cause to exterminate Israel’s Jews; that’s why there are vile Jews in Boston who on 10/8 before the Israeli bodies were even cold and weeks before Israel even responded to the barbarity of 10/7 were out there protesting on behalf of the Muslim savages who perpetrated the barbarism. The only more vile creature than a Jew who would protest on behalf of the Muslim savage is the Muslim protesting justifying their fellow Muslims’ savage depravity.
5- Leftist American Jews are traitors twice over. They reject America’s foundational principles and in doing so they would expose their fellow Americans and specifically American Jews to arbitrary actions of those who may not have their best interests in mind or may seek out right to do them harm and without a way to fight back. For that they are domestic enemies of all Americans, both Jew and non-Jew alike and in their choice of leftist political ideology they are useful idiots of the enemies of the Jewish body politic.
I hold nothing but contempt for them, contempt so strong that were I not Jewish, Jews would consider me antisemitic. The leftist Jew, be they American or Israeli are our Kapos; vile creatures who should only face condemnation.
Tony Kushner may be a Jewish leftist but JVP is not Jewish. It is a sham organization created by Jew hating Islamists and their leftist supporters with a few Jewish Jew haters as tokens.
The lesson of the holocaust is to believe our enemies when they tell us who they are and what their intentions are and that Israel must be armed to the teeth.
I have nothing but disgust and contempt at left wing "Jews" living in opulence inside their LA mansions without having to race to shelters as the sirens whale from incoming missiles. And not having 4000 terrorists invading their communities and grabbing families from their homes slaughtering and kidnapping them and not having their kids being mowed down while at a music festival, all while lecturing the Israelis about how NOT to respond.
What the Israelis are doing in Gaza has nothing to do with holocaust trauma and everything to do with the current dangers facing Israelis and what hamas intends to do in the future over and over again unless they are stopped.
Turkeys say: All hail Thanksgiving!
Sadly, the phenomenon of the self hating “kapo Jew” is not uncommon throughout Jewish history. Whether through profound ignorance or some deep seated psychological need (ie Stockholm Syndrome) such individuals turn their backs on their own people, land, culture and history. What they never understand until it is too late is that there is no great success in being on the last train to Auschwitz.
Thanks for writing this, you make a very good point. The only way towards peace is to end the focus on the past, and to look for the path forward that best protects the rights of all the people living in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
The rights the residents of the West Bank and Gaza seek is the right to destroy Israel and murder all its people. So forgive me if I conclude they have no rights at all.
“We shall never stop until we can go back home and Israel is destroyed. … The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromises or mediations. … The goal of this violence is the elimination of Zionism from Palestine in all its political, economic and military aspects. … We don’t want peace, we want victory. Peace for us means Israel’s destruction and nothing else.”
Yasser Arafat
These useful idiots are nothing more than leftist radicals with Jewish last names. Many are more likely practicing Satanists than Jews.
And if it weren’t for the filth in the media the truth about who they really are would be exposed instead of this false narrative that they represent a small faction of traitors to their religion and country financed by George Soros.
Who attacked who?
Rabbi Moshe Hauer:
“From bitter personal experience, my mother is committed to the “never again” mantra but not as it is so often invoked as either an overly confident prediction or an arrogant expression of a newfound invincibility. She has studied and experienced enough of Jewish history to be wary of its repeated patterns of tragedy and dislocation, and the chronic failures of overconfidence. To her, “never again” is a pledge to never again naively believe that it cannot happen here; that the cultured world will stand up against the ugliness of antisemitism; that Jews can outsource their defense to others, even friends. “Never again” is a reminder that allows her to recognize past evils in current foes.”
What? There are so many false and confusing conclusions in this essay that I don’t know where to start. So I won’t. See @Stephen Shechter below for an honest attempt at pointing out the lies and libels.
Not only is the article a twisted bunch of words but Stephen Schecter’s gibberish got my head spinning like Charlie McCarthy. I’m buzzed without drinking.
Haha
Boston Jews have lost their marbles.
To put it more clearly: They’re outa their fuckin’ minds. Turing your backs to your Brothers & Sisters makes them all chicken shit assholes.
Maybe if they had relatives in Israel they’d think differently. Or if they had lost their own relatives in the Holocaust.
I guess Boston only cares when they have bombers during races they open their hearts to the outside world.
"I ended up in America, rather than Israel, and that if the chips had fallen slightly differently, I too might be a traumatized Israeli invoking the Shoah to justify Israel’s actions in Gaza."
Israel's actual "actions" in Gaza are more intimated than actually defined in terms of cause and prosecution. The question that needs to be asked is whether or not they are based on an (oft-maintained, extreme) right-wing government pursuing an extreme right-wing agenda for purely self-serving political reasons or are they military actions taken for legitimate national security reasons?
Given Hamas' charter, its action on Oct 7th, its public statements that it will repeat Oct. 7th until Israel is obliterated and its people wiped out, is there any ethical or legal justification for Israel not to have the objective to destroy Hamas?
Yes, innocents die in a war. War is not a football field: it is an open-air abattoir. The statistics emerging from this conflict reveal that the collateral damage inflicted on the population is the lowest of any modern urban warfare — a 1:2 ratio. The figures are especially significant as Hamas fighters wear civilian clothing rather than military uniforms to blend into the civilian population, thus using civilians as human shields. They also convert civilian houses and infrastructure into weapons depots, command posts, and battlefields.
So, is Israel or its government being right-wing hawks when they take decisive action to destroy this mortal threat to their existence? Was FD Roosevelt a right wing extremist when he gave his "Day of Infamy" speech to Congress in 1941? Was Churchill a right wing extremist when he delivered his June 1940 "We shall fight on the beaches" speech to the House of Commons?
Or were they nations declaring an intent to protect their people against ruthless aggressors bent on their destruction?
Would any country in the same situation do otherwise? Have they ever done otherwise?
"I am not against collective punishment as a weapon of war because of my Jewishness; I am against it because it is wrong."
The implication is that Israel is engaged in inflicting collective punishment on Gazans (also popularly expressed in the media as Israel waging war against Gaza). The claim is a willful distortion of fact.
For the reasons cited above, Israel is patently NOT waging war against a civilian population. In fact, its firefights are first cleared by lawyers to ensure the actions comply with the Laws of Armed Conflict according to International Humanitarian Law (IHL).
Claims to the contrary by non-Jews and most egregiously by "woke, intersectional" Jews themselves reveals they are indulging in prejudice because no such standards are applied to other countries locked in mortal combat for their very survival.
By their vocal, public stance, using their Jewishness to denounce Jews protecting their homeland, their families, their lives, they define the Yiddish term "Shanda".
Lastly, as to what role the Holocaust plays in this war of words, there is an old expression: ""Kick me once, shame on you. Kick me twice, shame on me." Israeli Jews have learnt the lesson well. DIasporic Jews are relearning it.