Who Believes in Mermaids?

According to the latest CNN poll, 57% of Americans think that Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip are fully justified, while 39% think that Israel’s actions are “too much.” One might interpret those figures optimistically: It is doubtful support for Israel is higher in any other Western country. On the other hand, I would be more than a little dismayed to learn that 39% of Americans believe in mermaids or the tooth fairy, and I fail to see any plausible distinction between that belief and the claim that Israel has been employing excessive force.

But it gets worse. Over half of Democrats are within that 39%. And to judge by their recent statements and actions, it appears that the president and secretary of state are among the believers in mermaids. Fox News caught Secretary of State Kerry in an unguarded moment sarcastically speaking of Palestinian civilian casualties in heavy fighting in Gaza’s Shejaiya neighborhood, “It’s a hell of a pinpoint action, a hell of a pinpoint action.” Once he knew he was back on camera, Kerry quickly reverted to message; Israel has a right to defend itself; he was just reacting to the tragedy of innocent lives lost; war is hell.

But the anger in his voice directed at Israel, when he did not know he was being filmed, was as unmistakable as it was unjustified, for he could have known little of how many of those killed were actually civilians or of the circumstances of their deaths. Kerry promptly dispatched himself to the Middle East – uninvited, as former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren noted undiplomatically – with the acquiescence of President Obama, who expressed his own “serious concerns” about rising civilian casualties.

Gazan casualties, however, are a measure of precisely nothing except Hamas’s callous disregard for the lives of those living in Gaza and its cynicism about the ease of manipulating the Western media. Any civilians killed in Gaza have died only because Hamas locates its prime military assets in civilian neighborhoods and fights from among civilians. For good measure, it encourages, sometimes forcibly, civilians to remain in those neighborhoods, even when they have been given ample warning of pending Israeli strikes. In both international law and morality, the responsibility for civilians killed as collateral damage from legitimate military action rests solely on the shoulders of those who place their military assets in close proximity to civilians.

Kerry’s sarcasm about Israel’s “pinpoint” actions aside, what Col. Richard Kemp, former High Commander of British expeditionary forces Afghanistan and someone with a lifetime of experience in asymmetric conflicts, said of the IDF in Operation Cast Lead, remains true today: No army in the history of warfare has done more to minimize civilian deaths.

That the IDF is employed in legitimate military actions is beyond cavil. U.S. satellites, using infrared imagery have identified sixty tunnels from Gaza into Israel, from which hundreds of Hamas fighters could have emerged in a coordinated attack and slaughtered hundreds of Jews living close to the border. Bombs under kindergartens and other high casualty targets have already been discovered in some of those tunnels.

So great is the threat posed by those tunnels that the toughest question put to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at a recent press conference was: How could you have even contemplated accepting a ceasefire before the IDF had succeeded in blowing up more than a few of the attack tunnels that constitute such a mortal danger? He had nothing to answer other than that he counted on Hamas to reject the ceasefire – likely true. As is so often the case, Canadian Prime Minister Harper put it best: Self-defense is “not merely an Israeli right, but an Israeli obligation.”

The United States has no national interest in stopping the fighting before Israel has destroyed all the attack tunnels and seriously degraded the network of tunnels sheltering rockets and rocket launchers under Gaza City. The United States has, or should recognize that it has, a dog in this fight – i.e.. that a quasi-terrorist state should be thoroughly defeated and that its aggressive launch of nearly 2,000 rockets at Israel’s civilian population and attempted cross-border attacks should be rewarded with an unambiguous defeat. Pressuring Israel to stop short of that goal is a betrayal of Israel, the West, and ultimately the people of Gaza.

Daniel Pipes has frequently pointed out that only the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan paved the way for those two countries to leave beside their authoritarian pasts and join the democratic world. And Professor Mordecai Kedar of Bar Ilan University argues that Egypt’s Anwar Sadat was only willing to make peace with Israel after the thoroughgoing Egyptian defeat in 1973. Despite the element of surprise – in stark contrast to 1967, when Israel destroyed the Egyptian and Syrian air forces in the first hours of fighting – and Egypt’s initial success in crossing the Suez Canal, the war ended with Egypt’s Third Army completely surrounded and with no alternative to surrender. Only then did Sadat realize Egypt and its allies could not defeat Israel militarily and embark on the path to peace. In short, a thoroughgoing defeat often benefits no party so greatly as the defeated because it forces a re-examination of failed ideologies.

Even from a humanitarian standpoint, letting Hamas cynically play on Western heartstrings to save itself will only encourage more warfare and civilian casualties. Not that President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry cannot sleep at night out of worry over less than 400 Gazan women and children. They have managed to sleep quite peacefully, thank you, and play numerous rounds of golf, while passively looking on as 170,000 human beings have been killed in Syria and many millions turned into desperate refugees.

The best thing we can do for loved ones who have developed unsavory habits – gambling, drinking, etc. – is letting them bear the natural consequences of their actions. Rocketing civilian populations of your far more powerful neighbor and plotting mass terror attacks is precisely such an unsavory habit. By seeking to secure a ceasefire before Hamas has suffered a richly deserved defeat, Obama and Kerry are only ensuring that it will live to fight another day, and that hundreds more Gazan civilians will be killed.

There is a name for that in the psychological literature for those who out of an excess of sympathy facilitate self-destructive behaviors of their loved ones: enablers. President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry should not be Hamas’s enablers.

Written prior to Secretary of State Kerry’s farcical ceasefire proposal and President Obama’s intense pressure on Israel to accept it.

You may also like...

15 Responses

  1. Heshy Bulman says:

    From the very recesses of my soul – YASHER KOACH, R’ Yonasan for two highly incisive analyses of the current situation. How refreshing to come across this on Cross Currents after being subjected to the lame and duplicitous comments of Susan Rice on this site a couple of days ago. Please, Hashem, grant us all the “sechel” and perception to distinguish our friend from our enemies.

  2. Bob Miller says:

    “There is a name for that in the psychological literature for those who out of an excess of sympathy facilitate self-destructive behaviors of their loved ones: enablers. President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry should not be Hamas’s enablers.”

    Obama & Kerry’s loved ones are not we Jews, but our enemies. We don’t need psychological literature to detect that.

  3. koillel nick says:

    1. Being upset about the humanity of the casualties in Gaza does not mean the Israeli offence is unjustified. Kerry’s comment means absolutely nothing, and nothing in “Hell of a pinpoint operation” means anger at Israel, other than the Israeli offence went from a small operation to a full scale war. He never called Israel’s decisions wrong, unjust, or disproportionate.
    2. Re you previous post. Obama and Kerry pressuring for an immediate ceasefire and giving in to Hamas’s demands is only true if you believe Netanyahu’s version. Don’t forget that Kerry has a 100% pro Israel record in the Senate. While I believe that many politicians bend the truth, particularly I find Netanyahu as a truth bender. Just a month ago, Charedim worldwide were accusing of helping to destroy Torah Judaism.

    3. Believing that the FAA decision was decided by the white house is in Mike Bloomberg’s words “insulting.”
    4. The US position on Israel, hasn’t changed since the 1970s. The Obama administration’s position is no different than previous administrations. Arab civilian deaths have always made there way to all statements and press releases. A frum bogger compiled a list of President W Bush’s they were the same. The only real difference is that the American public are less interested in going to war than they were post 9/11, so leadership style changed with it.
    You seem to prefer a tough talking macho than a solution.

    You have this irrational bias against this president (have you ever agreed with a single position of his?).

    Lest you think I’m some American vacationing in the Catskills while Israelis are running for bomb shelters. I live in Israel, and I express hakaras hatov to this administration and congress for it’s support of Israel, and for supporting the iron dome project. Sec Hagel asked congress for 225M dollars for more iron dome parts last week. Do the math, it’s roughly 100 Shekels per person in Israel. I didn’t get that bill, and neither did you.
    So if I disagree with some of their tactics, I don’t throw the whole book at them. I look at the larger picture.

  4. Y. Ben-David says:

    It is time for Israelis and American Jews who care deeply about Israel (which does not include all American Jews) to wake up and realize that the Obama/Kerry world-view is not some sort of aberration but is here to stay. America’s support for Israel is going to continually decrease in the future. There are numerous reasons. First of all, a large majority of American Jews supported Obama both elections, including the one in 2012 in which Obama’s hostility to Israel and his pro-radical Islamic views were on display for everyone. Secondly, the non-Jewish groups who have traditionally supported Israel and Zionism are in long-term decline whereas new groups, such as Hispanics, who have no cultural or religious affinity for Zionism are the fastest growing ethnicities in the US. Thirdly, the post-Modernist philosophy which negates any concept of there being a “truth” or objective view of history in addition to promoting “understanding” of the most violent and racist movements such as radical Islam is spreading like wildfire among ALL American groups including religious ones and, sad to say, even among religious Jews and other Jews who have had strong identification with world Jewry and Israel.
    The conclusion is that we in Israel are simply going to have to learn to stand on our own two feet and stop looking to the Americans, who are fast fading from the world scene, for support. It won’t be easy but it is vital for our future survival. American values which used to promote democracy, tolerance, freedom, self-reliance and responsibility on the world stage have been thrown in the garbage can and are being replaced with a society whose main goal is to promote leisure-time activities and entertainment, whose most influential citizens are entertainers and other celebrities and whose government’s main task is to make its citizenry dependent on hand-outs to its population in order to control them can not long endure.

  5. lacosta says:

    Y ben david is at least 100% right…. the descent of South Africa from Afrikaner rule thru ‘BDS –Apartheid state’ to capitulation to Majority Rule was not that long.
    those of us who believe in Eternal Right to the patrimony cannot be blind to the fact that 1] millions of loathing non-jews live on this land 2] the longest occupation on Earth is israel’s
    rule over the occupants of the territories 3] according to the PC ethic of the world , no one is granted rule over people who wish either independence or citizenship

    we may not like to face that data , but those of us who have supported settlements ‘so we would never have to give it back’ who assumed that the Heathen would forever be satisfied with our ‘benign occupation’ , may someday be faced with two horrid options [after the widespread economic and political boycott of Israel brings it to its knees {{ remember the outcry with ONE DAY of no planes landing}}] —- giving them a State , l”a ; or worse, the One State Solution—where the 60% arab vote nullifies the Jewish state that once was– and the Jews will have no where to go…

    i admit i have no solution. some things in life are a Teiku— only Eliyahu and Mashiach can fix it. but in the meantime, no wonder the Tannaim despaired of living in the time period lifnei bi’as haGoel… i am glad i don’t have these global decisions on my shoulders, we pray the Leaders of klal yisrael can make the right choices to keep their people as safe as possible

  6. DF says:

    It is instructive that the cross currents post with a negative view of Obama is open to comments and critique, while the post with a positive view (which unquestioningly accepted the propaganda of Susan Rice) is closed to comments and critique. Very revealing.

  7. Stan Lee says:

    Kollel niks point is excellent . I am truly interested in hearing your reply. Have you ever actually agreed with anything Obama has said or done?

  8. Brooklyn Refugee Sheygitz says:

    A question for koilel nick:
    You claim to look at the whole picture and express hakarat hatov.
    Are you aware that the single largest “donor” to the mirrer yeshiva in Jerusalem – the largest yeshiva in Israel – is the treasury of the government of Israel? As reported by governmental disclosure sites and other public non for profit records. Is this fact noted on a plaque anywhere in the yeshiva premises? Perhaps next to the plaque honoring the larger donors?
    Has the minister of finance of the state of Israel ever been invited as the guest of honor at the yeshiva’s annual dinner?
    Was this fact ever considered before the large public tefilla gatherings seeking to publicly cry out against the destruction of the Torah world? Was the bigger picture looked at?

  9. shaul shapira says:

    1) I largely agree with koillel nick and he saved me some typing

    2) It’s unlikely that Israel is doing *literally everything* to minimize civilian casualties. I certainly hope they aren’t. I get sick hearing Israeli officials ‘bragging’ that Israeli soldiers have been killed because they went in on foot to some booby trapped house instead of bombing it from the air.

    3) “In both international law and morality, the responsibility for civilians killed as collateral damage from legitimate military action rests solely on the shoulders of those who place their military assets in close proximity to civilians.”

    People react negatively to pictures of carnage. It really doesn’t matter how justified it is. The brute facts remain. A woman and ten of her kids on a stretcher are likely to influence people’s opinion notwithstanding the rational arguments of ‘how we’d rather not be doing this.’ and ‘we gave Hamas every opportunity to avoid this battle.’ And the fact that it’s ultimately Hamas’s responsibility doesn’t change the fact that it was Israeli artillery that killed them.
    A gruesome picture is worth a thousand arguments.

  10. shaul shapira says:

    “They have managed to sleep quite peacefully, thank you, and play numerous rounds of golf, while passively looking on as 170,000 human beings have been killed in Syria and many millions turned into desperate refugee”

    IIRC, Kerry was pretty upset about Assad’s cluster bombing too. (“moral obscenity”) The U.S. was pretty close to actually getting involved in that conflict. They definitely reacted stronger there than in Israel.

  11. koillel nick says:

    @Brooklyn Refugee Sheygitz
    I am not the RY of the Mir so ask one of them. Personally, I do express hakaras hatov to the State of Israel, and I make it clear to my children as well.

  12. DF says:

    The comments of Koillel Nick and Shaul Shapira are a symptomatic variant of Stockholme Syndrome, in which the victim begins to identify with the agressors. It’s not uncommon.

  13. shaul.shapira says:

    DF-
    “It is instructive that the cross currents post with a negative view of Obama is open to comments and critique, while the post with a positive view (which unquestioningly accepted the propaganda of Susan Rice)”

    Sorry, but that’s nonsense. The post quoting Rice was by Shafran *none* of who’s posts allow comments. This one is by JR *all* of who’s posts allow comments.

    You don’t have to like the policy of not allowing comments on Shafran posts (frankly I don’t either), but it has zero to do with his attitude towards Obama. According to your theory why was this post http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2014/07/18/letter-in-todays-nyt/ closed to comments?

  14. Bob Miller says:

    DF wrote on July 31, 2014 at 1:27 pm:
    “It is instructive that the cross currents post with a negative view of Obama is open to comments and critique, while the post with a positive view (which unquestioningly accepted the propaganda of Susan Rice) is closed to comments and critique. Very revealing.”

    Evidently, the posters of articles here have discretion about allowing comments or not. Since this blog is well-moderated, I feel all should allow public comments, not only personal emails to the author. When an article is likely to cause controversy, as its author no doubt expects, pertinent public comments are especially in order.

  15. shaul shapira says:

    DF-
    “The comments of Koillel Nick and Shaul Shapira are a symptomatic variant of Stockholme Syndrome, in which the victim begins to identify with the agressors. It’s not uncommon.”

    There’s not much you can say in response to a gratuitous insult other than to note that your interlocutor has indulged in a gratuitous insult.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This