EYELESS IN GAZA 1 — LET THE SCALES FALL

By James Wilson

            Enroute to Israel I flew with a young Israeli couple.  They said of Israelis, “We are ordinary people trying to live well.  Millions hate us just because we live, and so we live in constant danger.  But all we have ever wanted is as normal a life as possible.  Please do not romanticize us, nor expect us to accept death passively.”

            As I write the guns fell silent three days before Hamas resumed rocket fire and Israel responded with air strikes.  Israel, in a fight for her life but humanitarian to the end, withdrew all her troops a week ago.  It is the same fight for life that began with her founding in 1948.  And the aggressors are the same neo Nazis whose forefathers cut their teeth in Berlin when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was the guest of Adolph Hitler throughout the war.  Let any who doubt read any history of the Middle East during the war years not written in Iran.  And let them wonder why so many Palestinian and Arab agitators deny the Holocaust as an isolated fringe group among the leaders of the world.  Their Nazi mentors taught them well.

            But let’s review the events of the past month.  They began with the brutal kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens, one of them an American citizen.  They did not begin with the rain of seven thousand unprovoked rockets each year on Israeli civilian areas, although that would be provocation enough.  They did not begin when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, even though the rocket fire increased by about 500%.  But the kidnapping and execution of three of their children was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Israel determined to destroy the tunnels that made these crimes possible.

            Israel stands accused of targeting civilians.  Yet they are the only nation on earth – besides the United States – who warns civilians to evacuate the area of their operations, giving away any hope of surprising their enemies.  They warn Palestinian civilians placed at risk – sometimes days in advance – while Israeli sirens give about fifteen seconds’ warning before an incoming Hamas rocket detonates.  I find it remarkable that we see nightly coverage of Palestinians left dead, injured, and homeless by Israeli air and artillery strikes while seeing no pictorial coverage of the destruction in Israel wrought by thirty-five hundred rocket strikes in this month alone.  Truth is exactly what Prime Minister Netanyahu has said, “There is a difference between us.  We are using our missiles to protect our children.  They are using their children to protect their missiles.”

            Truth is Hamas deliberately stores and launches its rockets from beneath schools, hospitals, and even private homes.  Truth is Hamas has been a complete bust at governing Gaza even after they were democratically elected by the very people the commentators call innocent.  (Don’t get me wrong; all children are innocent; the question is who puts them at risk.)  The Gaza government was bankrupt after losing the support of Syria, Iran and Egypt; they had no way to pay their forty thousand employees and unemployment was 50% — way up from when Israel pulled out in 2005.  Their attitude was, “Why not attack Israel?  Our charter demands their obliteration.  What is to lose?”  And they have proven right.  Our president gifted them with forty seven million dollars in so-called humanitarian aid; does anyone believe it will be used for aid?  The very tunnels the Israelis blow up are made from concrete they donated for building houses, schools and hospitals.  But that means nothing when a government views its citizens as weapons of warfare.

            It is incredibly rare when war is so clearly a contest between right and wrong; yet this conflict is just that.  But what – some say – about the United Nations?  We’ll address that in my next post.

              Meanwhile, Aldous Huxley earned fame in 1936 writing Eyeless in Gaza.  The title refers to Samson, the blinded Jew who put out the eyes of his own heart before his enemies burned out the eyes in his head.  Before death Samson replaced his heart eyes and returned to serving God.  He redeemed himself albeit too late to save his physical eyes.  The American government and many peoples of the world have blinded themselves to the simple choice between the God of life and the god of death in Gaza, but the blinding need be neither physical nor permanent.  Let us follow the God who says (Genesis 12:3) we are blessed when we bless Israel but not so much when we reject or ignore her.  Let us no longer be eyeless in Gaza.