Those of you crowing in your Cease Fire Now! regalia, seething at the Israeli flag and nodding in righteous agreement at Glazer’s speech:
A cease-fire proposal agreed to by Israel continues to be rejected by Hamas.
This is a good time to ask why.
Bear in mind that Israel was brought to this terrible war quite literally kicking and screaming; this is a war that the Israeli people neither chose nor celebrate.
Also remember that Hamas spent considerable energy and time embedding itself into the civic infrastructure of Gaza — hospitals, kindergartens, schools, apartment and office buildings all used as command and control centers, armories, sniper nests, rocket launch sites.
Knowing these two things, the intent becomes clear: Hamas deliberately, very dramatically, launched a vicious war, using the people of Gaza as a shield, and knowing full well that the arsenal that would be employed by a hyper-defensive Israel facing an existential threat would directly hit the people of Gaza first, triggering a crisis. There was no other possible outcome. None.
Much of the public and press have rewarded this plan, breathlessly reporting every Gazan casualty and laying the blame entirely on Israel, irrespective of the cause, ginning up unsupported cries of “Genocide!” “War crimes!” etc., helping foment the largest, most ferocious global wave of gross antisemitism in nearly a century. People harass Jews on the streets of western cities. Synagogues defaced. Posters torn down. Students assaulted. Slogans shouted. Israeli athletes shunned. A fad of buttons, flag pins, alignment.
Why is anyone surprised that Hamas refuses the cease fire; why would they (an equally pointed question is why is Hamas’ refusal so underreported)? The answer to both is simple: so long as a wave of hatred for Israel specifically, and Jews generally, continues to gain power, they feel victorious. For them, this was always a PR campaign, with the blood of their own innocent people as the great ink feeding the headline. The more blood, the better: a bigger font, more impact. The goal was ginning up hatred.
This is who you cheer, the barbarians killing their own for your self-righteous entertainment, so you can wear a pin at your cotillion and feel edgy while you hate in the name of the good.
This is who refuses the cease fire: Hamas.
And you, with your charming need to feel radical and chic while enjoying the safety of your distance, with your easy lapse into sloganeering and lockstep dogma, you, behind your paywall, or keyboard, or lectern, in the well of your legislature, in your political calculation and fund raising emails, in your spittle and rage, you and your wonderfully predictable reaction, are the reason why.
The blood show is for you.
Enough.
[Photo above is by By Hans Bernhard (Schnobby) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9459372]
