The fact I had to hunt for the email address reveals how often we correspond. Thankfully, it wasn’t more than a day or so before I got a response.
“B’H Israelis are united, full of resolve, pulling together while grieving for our dead,” part of the reply read. My email the other week went out a couple days after Hamas invaded Israel and began killing civilians in ways we cannot imagine here in America. My friend lives within range of rockets fired from inside Gaza.
Although I find it unlikely that Hamas would find anything useful in my emails, that’s all I am going to share, just to protect my friend. We were rivals who became sort-of friends in college, then more like friends as age and maturity worked on both of us. We still likely agree on about nothing, outside of the sanctity of motherhood, but we can respect one another.
He and his family emigrated to Israel years ago. He’s Jewish, and wanted to be with his people. He still loves America, even though he has issues with a lot of the things we used to argue about. He recognized that America gave him the right to disagree with and criticize everything about the country, where in other places he would be killed for his opinion.
He and his family have been listening for sirens for years, at times running for bomb shelters, sometimes when there were multiple generations around the table for their equivalent of a big Sunday family dinner.
I hope I will never be able to understand the hatred borne by some folks. The hatred held so precious by some Muslims led them to attack America simply because their religious leaders told them we must be killed, since we don’t believe like they do.
I have tried to avoid the images of incinerated and beheaded babies and children, grandmothers on the receiving end of an entire magazine of 7.62×39 ammunition in their kitchens and the like. Never mind the sadomasochistic video that may or may not show a young woman dying in the back of a truck while being beaten by her Hamas kidnappers.
All of them were killed for the sin of being Jews.
It ain’t the first time, even though the motivations are different. Russia and Nazi Germany persecuted Jews in ways that would give Pharoah pause. Splinter nationalist groups in America and other countries come up with ridiculous excuses why Jews should be killed, but thankfully they rarely act on those twisted beliefs.
Historically, there has never been a Palestinian State, as Hamas and others like to demand. The ground has always been the land of Israel. It was that way for thousands of years, well before the founding of the political nation of Israel. Time and again since the world powers determined Israel deserved a safe state for Judaism, and placed it on their ancestral homeland, people have invaded, bombed, lobbed missiles and generally tried to run them off, if not eradicate the entire people.
Time and again, Israel has held its own, bringing the wars to at least a stalemate if not a downright victory. Each time, in the name of peace, Israel has given up a little more here and a little more there to mollify the Muslims.
It’s different now, I think. In the past, Iran and other rogue nations have just postulated and blustered and threatened, but they knew better than to go too far, because Israel had a big, well-armed friend known as the United States.
Now our own government has supplied weapons to Hamas, courtesy of the disastrous and shameful retreat from Afghanistan. We handed over billions in frozen funds to Iran on the promise that the money would only be used for “humanitarian relief.” Women get beaten, tortured and killed in the street in Iran because their eyes can be seen behind a veil that’s too thin. Children can be castrated for their father’s alleged criminal acts, without a trial.
This is the same Iran that approved executing homosexuals by throwing them off tall buildings as a humane punishment. It’s confusing that there are banners carried by pro-gay Muslim groups shouting death to Israel and proclaiming solidarity with Hamas, when Hamas is also fond of publicly killing homosexuals.
The leaders of Iran call for a jihad, or holy war, against the west, yet we are expected to trust that the funds we give them will only be used to buy humanitarian aid from countries that just happen to export weapons or launder money for countries that aren’t allowed to sell weapons. Yeah, sure, we can trust their word. The chants of death to America are just political rhetoric.
I guess in a twisted way I can see some members of Congress cautiously and sometimes incautiously praising Hamas; very little makes any sense in Washington City anymore. After all, rioters and looters caused billions in damage to cities across the nation yet were supported in word and deed by elected officials because they hated the president of the time.
It concerns me that products of our state-supported universities are blocking highways around Raleigh and Durham demanding Israel give up more of everything.
It angers me, but again it doesn’t surprise me, that a handful of state legislators refused to be in the room when the General Assembly voted on a largely pro forma resolution supporting Israel. The optics are uglier when you consider that one of those solons left Salisbury Street to go speak at a rally for Attorney General Josh Stein’s gubernatorial race. Stein is the first Jewish attorney general in the state’s history, by the way. That particular choice — and the lack of a discreet suggestion that perhaps the particular legislator might not be a keynote speaker — can be seen as an indicator of where Stein’s priorities might be when or if he is elected. His politics might stand in the way of doing the right thing.
By no means am I supportive of the fact that civilians are being killed in Gaza, but the fact of the matter is this: the people of Gaza have allowed Hamas sanctuary in their land. It’s like the old story about the snake wanting to cross the river.
A traveler found a snake beside a river during a snowstorm. The snake was freezing to death, and begged the traveler to help him across the frozen river.
“But you’ll bite me,” the traveler said.
“Oh, I promise I won’t,” the snake said. “I’m different.”
So the traveler snuggled the snake inside his coat, and proceeded to cross the river. The snake warmed inside the man’s coat, and immediately began striking him.
“But you promised!” the man said as he died.
“It’s my nature,” the snake said. “You should have known better than to trust me.”
It’s beyond my comprehension why our own country’s leaders, or at least a lot of its citizens, seem to think we can trust the snake — especially when that snake is burning mothers and their children alive, and beheading babies.
Our open borders have welcomed thousands of immigrants who might or might not truly love America, and our leaders want to make it easier for more to come here.
How many of them are snakes begging to cross a frozen river?
