Only a fool could look at Gaza and blame Israel.
No one can deny that there have been tremendous tragedies in this war, but anyone who places the blame on Israel when Hamas has been planning this war for a decade is either foolish or antisemitic.
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This is a guest essay written by Ted Goldstein of The Zionist Voice. The following are two excerpts from his new book, “One Hundred Days of Night.”
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
Only a monster could look at the devastation in Gaza and not be moved to tears.
And only a fool could look at it and blame Israel.
Hamas, in addition to all of the unspeakable crimes they have committed against the Jewish People, has committed an even greater crime against their own — they have turned innocent Palestinian people into politically expendable propaganda pieces.
Whether the number of civilians who have died is 40,000 or 4,000, the fact remains the same: Hamas killed them all, and the blood-guilt of their deaths rests on their heads alone.
Hamas has held power in Gaza for nearly 20 years. In that time, they have built a network of 300 miles of underground tunnels, and they have fired over 100,000 rockets into Israel.
Two decades are a long time. In that time, the U.S. has had four presidents, Russia has invaded Ukraine not once but twice, and the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. Two decades are a long time a long time, and Hamas spent all those years preparing for October 7th.
They have invested neither time nor money in the infrastructure or future of “Palestine.” They have, however, invested in violence.
The terror tunnels are a disgusting demonstration of political selfishness. Every time I see someone post a picture of a Gazan child surrounded by rubble, I become overwhelmed with anger.
The reason that building was bombed is because Hamas started this war on October 7th.
The reason that building crumbled so is because Hamas put more concrete into their tunnels than their civilian infrastructure.
The reason that buildings continue to fall is because Hamas has not released any more hostages — hostages being held in the tunnels.
The tunnels represent the crowning achievement of two decades of Hamas. The result of this “sovereignty” has been the creation of the world’s most advanced kidnapping network to date.
Hamas is a uniquely evil organization in the world. They lack all compassion, even for their own. They have put every Gazan civilian in jeopardy so that they could launch the most violent pogrom in modern history.
Why?
Because their hatred of the Jews is greater than their love for their people.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said as much 50 years ago:
“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
The difference now, however, is that Western observers have lost their powers of discernment. They have lost their ability to tell the difference between who started a fight and who finished it. They have lost their ability to discriminate.
One of the blackest ironies in the Western coverage of this war has been the discourse around the “indiscriminate bombing of Gaza by the IDF.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Hamas launched a pogrom of indiscriminate violence against the Israeli civilian population. They accomplished zero strategically important goals on October 7th. Meanwhile, they have been hiding hostages beneath hospitals and civilian centers and launching rockets at Israeli cities.
If there has been any indiscriminate bombing, it has been Hamas’ bombing of Israel, not Israel’s bombing of Gaza.
No one can deny that there have been tremendous tragedies in this war, but anyone who places the blame on Israel when Hamas has been planning this war for a decade is either foolish or antisemitic, or maybe both.
An immediate ceasefire and an end to all hostilities is the only strategic policy a caring and thoughtful person can support right now. An immediate end to Hamas’ bombing of Israel, an immediate end to the use of hospitals and schools as military headquarters, and an immediate return of all the hostages.
Until that happens, there will continue to be widespread death and destruction. Until then, Palestinian civilians will continue to die at the hands of Hamas.
Israel may be holding the gun, but Hamas is pulling the trigger.
The Palestinian people deserve better than to be used as cannon fodder for Hamas’ propaganda machine. They deserve to live in peace, with safe homes and good schools. They deserve freedom and justice. They do not deserve Hamas.
Israel is not the source of all Palestinian suffering in the world, as Hamas has made so many of our former friends believe.
At some point, the West will need to repent for having supported this lie for nearly two decades and empowering Hamas’ campaign of catastrophe. Until then, the truth is that all of the bloodguilt of this war rests solely upon the heads of Hamas.
Israel did not start this war, but Israel will finish it.
They say you should never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
By the same token, anything that cannot be explained by stupidity can only be ascribed to malice.
The antisemitism we are seeing emerge in the West has two parts: its stupid followers, and its malicious leaders.
The stupid followers are, unfortunately, many of our former friends.
It has been hard for me to come to terms with calling my former friends — many of whom were considered Highly Gifted — stupid, but it is easier than calling them evil.
For example, following October 7th, an ex-friend of mine raised $1,200 for the children’s fund of the UN agency for Palestinians “refugees” (UNRWA). She was so proud of herself and all of her friends who, despite having so little disposable income, found a way to pony up money to feed a dozen terrorists for a week.
When I saw her post, I was outraged. I wanted to message her and tell her that she had just bought missiles for Hamas to launch at Israeli kindergartens. I wanted to tell her that UNRWA was a front for Hamas, that the “teachers” they employed were also kidnappers. I wanted to tell her she had raised money for evil.
But there was no point.
As I see it, there are only two options to explain why she, a very outspoken feminist, was able to proudly give money to an organization so intimately involved with what may be the largest femicide of our lifetimes: Either (1) she knew how corrupt UNRWA was and continued to contribute, which would imply malice; or (2) she had no idea how corrupt they were and invested no time in investigating her donations, which would imply stupidity, but not malice.
At the same time, I know multiple people, many graduates of Highly Gifted “magnet” schools and top 20 universities, who proudly “Flooded Brooklyn for Palestine” on November 8th, the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
When I asked one of them if they knew that it was the anniversary of Kristallnacht, they said no, and they even had the gall to thank me for educating them.
They, however, still marched.
Is it malicious to “flood” a Jewish neighborhood with thousands of people using the chants of our enemies on the anniversary of the world’s most infamous pogrom?
Yes, it is.
However, it is not malicious to have no idea what Kristallnacht was; it is ignorant.
That said, I can guarantee whoever planned that rally knew exactly what day it was. Just like they knew exactly what the word “flood” would evoke for Jewish people. Just like they knew that most of their followers would have no idea what Kristallnacht was.
There is an important lesson from Kristallnacht for us here: The Nazis had hoped that Kristallnacht would be a populist uprising against the Jews in which everyday German citizens rose up against their Jewish “oppressors.”
But they did not, so the Nazis had to plant agitators, of whom they had many, to give the pogrom the appearance of popularity.
The Nazis planned Kristallnacht for the 15th anniversary of their heroic Beer Hall Putsch. The Nazis — like today’s “anti-Zionists” — had a keen eye for anniversaries.
Whoever planned the “Flood Brooklyn for Palestine” protest was masterfully malicious. They knew exactly what they were doing, what the significance was of that date, and, most importantly, they knew how to disguise it so that useful idiots like my former friends would popularize it.
The organizers and leaders of the “anti-Zionist” movement are clearly malicious. There can be no other explanation.
The “anti-Zionist” propaganda machine is excellent. In just 15 years, it has taken over the entire global “progressive” movement. It has become so powerful that it has even taken over the “progressive” discourse on climate change.
“No climate justice, on occupied land,” chanted Greta Thunberg at a European summit on climate change. The irony of this being chanted in Europe, the great occupying force of the globe, seemed to have been completely lost on them.
Now, is this malice or stupidity? Surely, it must be stupidity. Especially since, if we took their chant at face value, they seem to be telling the occupying nations of the world that her claim would imply there should be no climate justice anywhere in the world that is under occupation, which seems antithetical to her movement entirely.
The climate activists who have been convinced to place “anti-Zionism” before climate justice are stupid. The “anti-Zionist” activists who made it happen are not.
Since 2007, Hamas has been expanding its ideological empire into the “progressive” circles of the world. First it was the United Nations, then it was academia, and then it was primary schools.
When I was in high school, I did not know a single person who supported Hamas in any way. After graduating from college, more than 50 percent of my fellow graduates have supported Hamas in one way or another, either through rhetoric or raising money for UNRWA.
In the immortal words of H.L. Mencken, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
And our public is quite stupid.
But our Ivy League professors are not. Our Harvard-educated lawyers are not. Our politicians and presidents are not.
So then why then are they all carrying water for Hamas?
If they are not stupid, what other explanation can there be besides malice? How can we explain the number of professors who have openly praised Hamas in the past nine months?
At the beginning of this war, I thought the universities failed in their obligation to educate their students through institutional laziness and moral equivocacy.
However, I now see that this was not a failure at all. It was a great success — no less for Hamas propaganda, and it could not have happened without the success of their supporters in academia.
These professors are not stupid; they are well-educated enough to know that November 8th was Kristallnacht or that UNRWA was funding Hamas.
Yet they intentionally push these types of actions on their students. The explanation can only be malice.
The university administrations will continue to equivocate about the role of the university in policing speech. As large and ungainly bureaucratic institutions, the main purpose they serve is to continue to exist as large ungainly bureaucratic institutions.
We can and should not expect much from them in the way of anything.
But what is to be done about these professors?
Moral Relativism is a metastasizing tumor in our body politic. The longer we allow these professors to preach malice unopposed, the sicker our society becomes. We must take a stand against the advocates of evil. We must not allow terrorism to be taught to our kids. We must destroy Hamas and its supporters at any cost.
 | A guest post by
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Regarding Gaza: there is no casino in Israel. You put 3 casinos in Gaza, 10 hotels, good security and services for visitors, and you get flooded with Israeli and international tourists in no time, for a fraction of the price of all those tunnels. But Hamas is not interested at all in prosperity. They are animated by blood-thirsty lust for destruction of Israel. And make no mistakes, many - probably a sizeable majority - of people in Gaza think the same. Hamas didn't appeared suddenly in a void. Some double agents, in Qatar and elsewhere, propagate anti-israeli sentiments in the West. Their narrative is simple: strong evil Israel opresses poor weak Palestinians. In a mix of Christian values were the weak is always right, and historical bad conscience regarding colonization, they have a villain served on a silver tray: Israel. In a West devoid of grand causes to fight for, these poor souls found finally one: fight Israel. So seducing, their intellectual prowess can nothing against it. Same when highly gifted guys go batshit crazy for super hot but super toxic women, it happens at a level their intellect can't reach.
I find myself needing to say something and I’m sure this is one venue where I can feel secure voicing this criticism of Bibi. His words to Congress and the world had two mistakes in one sentence. #1: The protesters outside were not ‘useful idiots’ … they are in fact ‘dangerous idiots’. #2: They weren’t all outside.