Stop explaining Israel’s right to self defense (Forest Rain)

I am sick and tired. More than anything, I am mad.

I am sick and tired of seeing cute stories of Israeli kids having kite festivals sending messages of peace and candy for Gazans. On one hand I love my people for their strength of spirit and eternal optimism. It is important to see to the psychological well being of children under attack. At the same time, the thought of children investing so much emotional energy in hoping for peace, in replanting trees that have been burned when they can be burned again at a moments notice seems to me to be both a waste of effort and setting them up for disappointment that could constitute one psychological knock too many. 

My logic says stop the arson fires and then replant. 

I am sick and tired of explaining our right to life. Over and over we in Israel find ourselves fighting for the right to live free in our own land. Over and over we find ourselves explaining to the nations of the world that we have a right to life and if life is threatened we have a right to fight to defend life. These aren’t theoretical issues, an opportunity for mental gymnastics or an exercise in philosophy. These are the most basic rights that all people have, rights that need no explanation.

“We recognize Israel’s right to defend herself but…”

I am tired of this politically correct, morally corrupt sentence. We hear this sentence in every political arena imaginable, in the UN, from the leaders of other countries and in the media.

It’s not acceptable. One little “but” negates the first part of the sentence, negates our right to self-defense, negates our right to LIFE. One little word opens the door for all the excuses that come after, every explanation under the sun as to why the Nation of Israel does not actually deserve the right to defend ourselves from our would-be murderers.

One little word makes all those who use it complicit with those who actively strive to murder us. There is no room for ifs ands or buts in that sentence. Israel has the right to defend herself. Period.

The Nations of the world are not actually blind, they simply have chosen not to see. We can explain ourselves blue in the face and it won’t influence those who have closed their minds to logic and common decency.

This is where the sick feeling comes in. It makes me physically ill to see Jews abroad and even my own government in Israel bend over backwards to not seem “too aggressive” to the nations of the world who love to condemn Israel for defending her citizens.

Israel is already being accused of using disproportionate force against rioting Gazans. Of course, the IDF’s reaction to 40 thousand people, reared on Jew-hate, instructed to kidnap and murder Israelis, attempting to storm Israel’s border was utterly disproportionate. It is stunning that from this mass of rioters the IDF managed to pick off only the major sources of the problem - 60 people, 52 of whom were claimed by Hamas as operatives (i.e. professional terrorists). Most of the remainder were claimed by Islamic Jihad (a different terror organization). Managing to kill terrorists and not the people they were using as human shields, killing so few people out of so many violent rioters is a breathtaking and unprecedented accomplishment.

But of course, everything good Israel does is somehow twisted against her.

Our border is under attack and our land is burning. Why do so few take this seriously?! This is the land that gives us life, our ancestral homeland whose name we share, the only country we have – and it is tiny. There is no place to move on to, no replacement. Attacks on our land are attacks on our person and there is a limit to how many scars one can take, how much abuse one can absorb.

My friend who lives in Be’eri tells me that it is hard to be in her home, the air reeks of so much smoke, it is hard to breathe. Hearing this, sitting in my (for the moment) comfortable home in northern Israel I feel tears of frustrated rage well up inside me.

I experienced a single day of arson terror that filled my city with flames, poisoned the air, imbedding the stench of smoke in our clothes, in the walls of our home and even our skin.

That was just one day.

Day after day firebombers fly seemingly innocent kites and balloons over our border. These weapons of destruction are diabolical in their simplicity and in the perversion of what would normally evoke happiness into tools of terror and ruin.

Day after day after day after day…

(next to Kibbutz Re’im)

It doesn’t look “nice” to send fighter jets after people flying kites and our government is worried about the Gaza conflict escalating to a war that will swiftly become a war – from both Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north.

I understand these dilemmas.

At the same time, my land, my People, my friends are under fire – literally.

And every day that Hamas is not deterred from continuing these horrific attacks I cannot help but wonder what Hezbollah is learning while they watch.

Every time they see Israel fire warning shots at Hamas firebombers, not aimed to kill, what do you think Hezbollah strategists think?

Every time I see images of the damage in southern Israel I think of the forests of northern Israel. I think of how I watched my own neighborhood burn.  

I am sick and tired and angry. I don’t care what the nations of the world think. I care about my family, my friends, my land, my life. It is time to stop explaining our rights and simply do what it takes to protect them.

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