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):
- Why does Israel complain about Hamas? Hamas is weak and doesn’t have advanced weapons. Most of its rockets fell short.
- 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.
- Why can’t the Middle East become peaceful? Who should be blamed?
- 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.
- 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?
- 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 wantallthe 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.
- 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?
- 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.
- 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?
- 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.
- 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?
- 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?
- All the countries surrounding Israel are populated by Arabs. How can anyone thus make the claim that Palestinian Arabs never existed?
- 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?
- What are some good ideas to stop Hamas from firing rockets, yet not blow up any buildings in the process?
- 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.
- When will the time come to end the Palestine and Israel war? What are the solutions to end war?
- Every time this question is asked, one must marvel at the chutzpah of anyone suggesting that theremustbe 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.
- 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?*
- 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.
{Reposted from the Elder of Ziyon website}