{Originally posted to the Emes Ve-Emunah website}
Those of us that are Chicago Cubs fans have been made proud over the last couple of years. Even for those not into baseball it had been a widely known and accepted truism that the Cubs were the immutable doormat of the National League – destined to remain there forever. Those ‘lovable losers’ were a perennial joke for comedians – forever incapable of making it to the World Series.
I recall the burst of laughter by the audience when the 1989 movie ‘Back to the Future II’ predicted that the Cubs would win the World Series in 2015. That movie was off by a year. In 2016 the Cubs won the Worlds Series.
What changed? It was the new owner’s determination to build a winner. Tom Ricketts bought the Cubs in 2009 and 7 years later people stopped laughing. Ricketts had a World Series winner. 2016 was 108 years since the last time the Cubs did that.
What many people today might not know is that the Cubs were once seen as so anti-Semitic that no respectable Jew would be a fan. Most old time Jewish Chicagoans that are in to baseball remain loyal Chicago White Sox fans for that reason.
So as a Cub fan, I was particularly pleased to find VIN report that Tom Ricketts (who is also the new RNC finance Chair) flew to Israel to attend the US Embassy opening in Jerusalem yesterday. My how times have changed.
As inspired as I was yesterday by the show of support for the Jewish state by so many people from diverse backgrounds, I was nevertheless disappointed by those who saw this magnificent event as troubling instead. Many of whom were Jews – some even religious Jews.
According to VIN 4 Republican senators, 10 Republican congressmen and one Republican governor attended. But not a single Democrat. Most of whom expressed doom and gloom about it. Although at least one offered written support:
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, issued written statements of support. “Every nation should have the right to choose its capital. I sponsored legislation to do this two decades ago, and I applaud President Trump for doing it,” the top Senate Democrat said in a rare moment of agreement with the Republican president.
What is most egregious however (and what these doomers and gloomers were reflecting) was the mainstream media focus on Palestinians that were trying to cross the border from Gaza into Israel. A prime example of this was a British rag called The Guardian:
International condemnation of Israel’s killing of 59 Palestinian protesters in Gaza escalated as thousands rallied in the coastal enclave to bury the dead from the latest round of violence. The killings took place on Monday during demonstrations at the Gaza border fence, which coincided with a high-profile ceremony to mark the controversial transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by the Trump administration that overturned decades of US foreign policy. As senior UN rights officials condemned the killings as an “outrageous human rights violation” – adding that it appeared anyone approaching the Gaza border fence was liable to be killed by Israeli soldiers.
Not a word about context. The message is that Israeli soldiers care little about human life as they shoot to kill unarmed Palestinian whose only goal was to protest the harsh conditions imposed on them by the Israeli occupiers.
That message is a shameful and bold faced lie. I’m sure that not a single Israeli soldier at the border crossing had any intention of killing a Palestinian. They did not shoot to kill. They shot by Israeli snipers in the legs to stop them from surging across the border. That was reported by a reporter yesterday stationed in Gaza who witnessed where all the wounded were injured. That 59 died needlessly is a tragedy. There is no shame in reporting that. The shame is in how it is being characterized. And who is at fault.
Let us be clear. Israel was protecting its borders from a people that have tried mightily to infiltrate Israel and kill as many Jews randomly as they could. Mostly through terror tunnels. It is also the stated policy of their Hamas leadership in Gaza and the not so secret desire of the more ‘moderate’ Palestinian Authority (whose leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is an antisemitic Holocaust denier) to take back ‘their country’ for Islam by all means necessary. Including death to some of them while trying.
Hamas surely knew that Palestinians trying to storm that border would be killed. They urged their people to close up shop and amass on the border to do exactly that – hoping for those deaths to occur so they could use them against Israel. This too is not a secret. Even some of the mainstream media reported that truth albeit buried some where deep into their report. Which consisted mostly of Jews killing poor unarmed Palestinian protesters. Some of which was blamed by reporters on the Embassy opening in Jerusalem. Which Hamas cynically knew would be reported that way.
And what was their reason for doing this? Not the poverty they suffer because of a blockade imposed by both Israel and Egypt. Both of whom did as a means to prevent arms being smuggled into Gaza to be used against them. No that wasn’t it. It was not a protest about the squalor in which they live.
They wanted to return to the land their parents and grandparents abandoned during Israel’s war of independence in 1948 – which they claim as a right. That too was reported last night in a rare moment of mainstream media honesty.
One can quibble about why they left and whose fault it was. But there is no way that the exponentially greater number of descendants are going to get that land back. To do so would mean the end of Israel – and they know it. Which is of course their goal.
What about the possibility of a 2 state solution with East Jerusalem as their capital? One of the protesters was randomly interviewed about what he thought about that. He categorically rejected the idea claiming all of Jerusalem is theirs. No Palestine without all of Jerusalem.
It is pure fiction that the Israeli snipers were purposely killing unarmed Palestinians peacefully protesting at the border. There was nothing peaceful about it. They may not have brought guns in order to make themselves victims. But they did throw Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers Molotov cocktails can be deadly in frightening ways causing people to burn to death. They also brought slingshots. Flinging stones with force of a slingshots can easily kill someone.
What is Israel supposed to do? Bring their own slingshots and Molotov cocktails?! Of course they are going to protect themselves and the rest of Israel in the most efficient way possible. All while respecting human life. They used teargas to try and disperse the crowds and snipers firing at the legs of the protesters trying to storm the border. Some were however killed. But that is exactly what their leadership wanted so they show the world about how evil Israel is in shooting unarmed protesters. That they have they staged more than one death for those purposes has been proven. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did some of that here.
This is the context missing from the mainstream media. All they see is starving Palestinians so desperate that they are willing to risk their lives to make their case to the world. And that they are being killed by Israelis who are fault for their lot in life. Which is exactly what the Hamas leadership orchestrated them to see.
So those that pity the poor souls dying for their cause, ought to save that pity for people that deserve it. Not for those who choose to be killed for that way.
The truth is that most Gazans hate all for this and just want their lives to get back to their normal. They are not necessarily in lockstep with their leaders tactics even though they might agree with their goals. That was yet another moment of truth reported yesterday by the mainstream media.
The Guardian also reported the following:
The UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said: “Those responsible for outrageous human rights violations must be held to account.
I actually agree with him. My only dispute is – who it is exactly that is responsible. I don’t think there can be any doubt to anyone even slightly objective that understands context. It is Hamas, the terrorist organization that is purposely leading its people down the path of poverty, death, and destruction. They are the ones that should be held accountable. It is more than high time that the mainstream media reported it that way.
Oh – how things might have been different had Palestinian leaders taken Gaza and made their own ‘desert bloom’ – instead of doubling down on their goal of destroying Israel. They could have asked Israel to help them do that. I am 100% certain that they would have. That might have led to a 2 state solution years ago. Instead they have 59 dead Palestinians and little to show for it.