Our small apartment is, at present, full to the brim with
refugees: children and grandchildren from Israeli towns and cities under bombardment
by rocket fire. It is noisy, crowded, and messy, and still, we are urging yet more
of our many children to leave their homes in cities getting the worst of it, to
seek refuge with us—we can always accommodate one more.
The horrible people shooting rockets at my children and
grandchildren find the town where we live to be too small to be an interesting
target. They aim for maximum casualties and we’re just not enough people for
them to bother with (for now). As such, it is a relief to have the ability offer
my family refuge, as inconvenient and hectic as that may be for all of us.
As my home overflows with people, my inbox fills with
notifications of anti-Israel Quora questions, or rather propaganda not very well
disguised as questions. I answer some, and decline to answer others, as the
mood strikes, just a surgical in and out of the Quora interface. Those who seek a genuine understanding of what is
happening on the ground in our region always thank me, however they are few and
far between. The others either ignore my responses or attack and insult me.
That’s fine. Once the haters get out of bounds, I report them, and
then they are banned from Quora. Of course, these baduns proliferate like
cockroaches, so I just don’t get too caught up in the (mean and snotty) repartee.
I have a job and a life.
People are always asking me to supply a source for their
side of a debate, or worse yet, to jump into the fray of a debate when they’ve
lost their way. But I don’t do debates. Debates on subjects specific to this
region are always about who hangs in the longest, and not about either facts or
history. They get ugly and ad hominem and keep you up at night gnashing your
teeth, thinking, “I should have said this. I should have said that,” and
seriously, there’s no point. It doesn’t persuade. It doesn’t end the rockets or
the hate. It’s just people bumping egos one against the other online, just zeroes
and ones.
But hey. If debate is your thing, knock yourself out, and I’ll
even supply some grist for your mill—just don’t ask me to take over when you lose
steam—I’m too busy wiping noses, changing diapers, and serving as a short-order
cook and entertainment center, while holding down a fulltime job. Not to
mention grinding my teeth down to the nubbins in my sleep in my fury at the
nasty people of Gaza.
Varda’s Primer on Some Basic Anti-Israel Questions and How to Answer Them (but you probably shouldn’t bother):
Q. Why does Israel
complain about Hamas? Hamas is weak and doesn’t have advanced weapons. Most of
its rockets fell short.
A. Children and grandchildren have been made refugees by rocket fire. They’ve taken refuge in “safer” smaller towns because the rockets have made their lives a living hell. Adults cannot work. Children cannot go to school. Schools and synagogues have been hit. We witness, on a daily basis, preschool boys and girls completely traumatized by having their sleep interrupted by sirens, booms, and broken glass, the rush into safe rooms, the nervous adults, and reports of a child they know, or close to their age, who lives close to their home, dying of a direct rocket hit. They hear sirens and their homes shake at all hours.
To even ask this question is insane. How would you feel if your town was targeted with rockets day and night? Are “only” 10 Israeli deaths, including that of a 6-year-old child, not enough for us to have the right to “complain” about Hamas? Are rockets that kill and traumatize, not advanced enough for us to respond?
Clearly, those who
want us to put up and shut up are antisemites, full stop.
Q. Why can't the
Middle East become peaceful? Who should be blamed?
A. Blame those who will not accept a Jewish State on Jewish
indigenous territory within any borders—those who won’t stop targeting Jewish
Israeli civilians.
Q. Why is Israel
reluctant to grant the Palestinians full rights and representation in the
Israeli government? Why won’t they end apartheid and attempt to unite all
people of their country?
A. Your question has a flawed premise. “Palestinians” don’t
want full rights and representation in the Israeli government, which is why we
gave them autonomy in their villages in Judea and Samaria, and in Gaza, from
which, by the way, Israel expelled thousands of Jews from their homes in 2004, in
order to offer the Arabs self-rule on Jew-free Israeli territory. But does this
make them peaceful? No. Because they want all
the territory and will not stop targeting Israeli civilians, because they cannot have all of the territory, which
is, by the way, Jewish indigenous territory.
In other words, in the PA-ruled areas of Judea and Samaria,
and in Hamas-ruled Gaza, Arabs have their OWN representation by their OWN democratically
elected governments.
In Israel, there is no apartheid. Israeli Arab citizens of
Israel have full rights. The same rights as Jewish citizens of Israel.
None of this unites all the people of the country, because
the Arabs of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza want the country to be totally expunged
of any Jewish presence.
Q. Why did Israel
embark on the unjustifiable policy of evicting Palestinians from their own
homes in Gaza and stoop down to the level of grabbing and occupying those
houses for themselves, thus causing the present war?
A. It didn’t. The Arabs residing in this Jewish-owned
property agreed in court to pay rent for the privilege of living there, and
then refused to follow through. They have lived there without paying rent to
the Jewish owners for years and years and years, and this is against the law,
as it is in every country in the world. The eviction hasn’t even happened, and
there is still an appeal pending.
The land has been Jewish-owned since before 1948. No one
wants to “grab it” or occupy it. They want the effing tenants to pay the rent.
Q. Considering
Israel’s strong defense system, the rockets launched cause very little damage.
Aren’t these attacks a waste of resources? In business it’s called a “loss
making venture.” Damage caused is not as desired. Why do they still continue to
do this?
A. If you call the loss of ten lives, including a 6-year-old
boy “very little damage,” then you have checked your morals at the door.
Q. In its latest
large attack, the Israeli military leveled a building that housed many media
outlets including The Associated Press. What reasons might Israel have for
doing this?
A. Hamas terrorists were embedded in this building with the
AP’s consent. Thus you have a case of the media establishment wearing its
antisemitism on its sleeves by colluding with terrorists who have the sole goal
of killing Jewish civilians. Oh, and by the way, the Israeli military gave the
AP and others in the building a full hour’s warning to evacuate. All the staff
had sufficient time to leave and were unscathed. Can you think of any other nation
that gives warning before bombing terrorists who are shooting rockets at and
killing its citizens? The better question is: why must Israel alone warn terror
targets before taking them out?
Q. All the countries
surrounding Israel are populated by Arabs. How can anyone thus make the claim
that Palestinian Arabs never existed?
A. Israelis certainly know that the Arabs of Judea, Samaria,
and Gaza exist. But these have no nationality, because no existing Arab country
has absorbed them and they can’t be “Palestinian” if “Palestine” doesn’t exist.
And if “Palestine” exists, there would already be two states, in which case, why
would anyone still be speaking of a “two-state solution?” And if there is a
“Palestine” and two states, why has that not solved the problem of Arab terror
against Jewish Israeli citizens?
Q. What are some good
ideas to stop Hamas from firing rockets, yet not blow up any buildings in the
process?
A. How about this? America, the EU, the UN, and other Hamas
allies can stop funding the terror machine. That will stop the rockets quickly
enough, and without any need for blowing up buildings.
Q. When will the time
come to end the Palestine and Israel war? What are the solutions to end war?
A. Every time this question is asked, one must marvel at the
chutzpah of anyone suggesting that there must
be a two-state solution. It seems obvious that if “Palestine” existed, there
would already be two states (or more if you count Jordan, for instance). As
such, either the existence of two states is not a solution, or there is no such
thing as “Palestine.” Because surely Israel exists, which is the entire reason
for the war. Israel exists and the Arabs don’t want her to.
Q. Why can't
Palestinians in the West Bank relocate to other Arab states and let Israel enjoy
peace in its traditional biblical land? I see that Bethlehem, Jericho and other
biblical sites like Hebron are located in the West Bank?*
A. That’s what should happen, just as the expulsion of Jews
in Arab countries led to their absorption by the Jewish State. But the Arab
nations don’t want to absorb the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. They’d rather keep
them as pawns. They want these fellow Arabs to retain their refugee status in
order to force Israel to negotiate. The negotiations are for the purpose of chipping
away at the territory that is the Jewish State of Israel, bit by bit, until
such time as the entirety of the Jewish State ceases to exist and comes under
Islamic domain as part of the wider Islamic Caliphate. This won’t happen.
Israel is here to stay, as the bible also foretells.
*This last is to be cherished: the rare question from an actual truth seeker wanting information, clarification, and understanding.
