So, now we are at it again, huh.
I am writing this on the morning of Friday, July 11, so it may very well be entirely out of date by the time that you read it on Sunday the 13th. But, despite the fact that most Americans do not realize it - and would not care if they did - the Jews of the Middle East are, yet again, in another mini-war with the front-line Arab troops in Gaza.
And they are calling it Operation Protective Edge.
I honestly do not think that I like the name. It is just too ambiguous. Protective Edge? What does that even mean, really? Or does it have a connotation in Hebrew that I am unaware of?
I think that I would have gone with something more like... I don't know... Operation We Are Going to Kick Your Ass?
To my ear that has a certain ring.
Let us look at it again:
Operation We-Are-Going-to-Kick-Your-Ass.I like that better than Operation Protective Edge.
Needless to say, however, whatever the name of this thing in Gaza, the question that many of us are asking ourselves is whether the Netanyahu administration has the strength and courage to eliminate Hamas.
I certainly doubt it.
It is, of course, exceedingly easy for me to sit here in Oakland and say, "Hell, yeah! Go for it, fellahs!", but that does not change the fact that there is no possible end-game with Hamas as a player. So long as Hamas exists so, according to the very nature of Hamas, the conflict must go on.
This is because Hamas is in the Jew Killing Industry. Killing Jews is the function of Hamas. It is not a secret. They practically shout it from the roof-tops on a daily basis and, yet, they still end up with US taxpayer dollars, not to mention EU and UN funding.
The reason for this, at least in part, is because Barack Obama is the president of the United States and he is not a friendly character towards Israel. There are no two ways about this. Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood and the Brotherhood is the organizational parent of both Hamas and Qaeda.
People, by the way, need to stop saying that Hamas calls for the elimination of Israel in its charter. This is a lie of omission. The Hamas charter calls quite specifically for the genocide of the Jewish people and quotes my favorite hadith in doing so:
The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!Now, you can call me old-fashioned and some will call me a racist, right-wing war-monger, but what I say is that when the Jewish people have an organization on the border of the Jewish State that screams to the heavens for the destruction of that state, and for the murder of its Jewish citizenry, then Israel has a moral obligation to eliminate that organization.
Some would even argue, as old-timey Zionists once did, such as Moshe Dayan, that the very purpose of Israel is to protect the Jewish people.
It will be an ugly job and this gives me no pleasure whatsoever to write, but I honestly believe that it is the necessary next step.
Hamas needs to go away.
I do not know how I could be possibly be more concise.
Hamas needs to go away.The question, of course, is how to do it?
What combination of ground operations and aerial assaults would be necessary to round up the Hamas leadership?Round up the leadership and put them on trial for incitement to genocide.
But as I sit here and ponder this - looking at blue skies and puffy white clouds outside my window - I know that I am safe.
Our friends and family in Israel are not.
What they are dealing with is blood and bombs.
Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.