Update from Day 6 of the Hamastan (Under)Ground War

Since arriving in Israel a little over a year ago, Kibbutz Ginegar has become for us a home away from home.  Lucky for us, my friend Haike always generously arranged for us to stay there and to join in all of the holidays and events in the kibbutz.  We were there for Israel Independence Day and went to watch the world cup in their little brewery and often went to their pool on the weekend during these hot summer days.  Overlooking the Jezreel Valley, Ginegar is a quaint and peaceful community of a couple hundred souls about 45 minutes from Haifa.

Unfortunately, the Angel of Death spreads its shadow to even the brightest of corners. This afternoon, the terrible news arrived that a son of the Kibbutz, Shahar Dauber, 20 years old and a soldier in the paratroopers, was killed with two others from his unit, when they entered a booby trapped house.

I don’t know if I ran into Shahar or his family during our visits to the brewery or while enjoying a meal at the dining hall, but I do know that he was a hero who gave his life so that all of us could raise our families here with peace and security in our ancestral homeland. I do feel that his death was likely unnecessary.  It could have been prevented if the army was not so careful about inflicting civilian casualties and Hamas was not so determined to hide behind human shields. Any other army would have just punched its way through the Gaza neighborhood, but the IDF chooses to check the houses to see if there is anyone hiding in there and does not destroy buildings if there is no need to. Israel is excoriated by the international community for bombing houses, while Hamas not only does not have any qualms about destroying houses, but rather it uses them as weapons.

I mention this because the UNHRC, a body consisting of such “bastions” of human rights as Cuba, Venezuela, Congo, Pakistan, China, and Russia voted today to set up a committee to investigate alleged Israeli “war crimes.” This same body recently called for Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria, even though that country is embroiled in a deadly civil war. Not surprisingly, the kind of human rights the inhabitants of the Golan were meant to expect was never made entirely clear in the resolution.   

This is a dangerous game that the UN is playing.  By constantly obsessing solely over Israel, it prevents other issues from being addressed while making a mockery and undermining the UN system.  Worse, after all the very real (and unprecedented in the history of warfare), efforts that Israel has made to minimize civilian casualties, it seems clear that the council keeps moving the goalpost while providing cover for Hamas and obsessing over only one side in this conflict. If Tzipi Livni, Israel’s Minister for Legal Affairs response this evening that the UNHRC should “Get lost/Look for me” is indicative of anything it is that Israelis will no longer feel obligated to take into consideration critiques of its policies.  As such, this politically motivated decision encourages a purely realpolitik approach that would seem, at face value, to place Palestinians in even greater danger.  It means that Israelis will be held responsible no matter what they do, as such the international community has effectively lost any leverage as well as any moral suasion over Israel.  In short, this will only serve to radicalize Israelis and strengthen the voices calling for the establishment facts on the ground.  After all, if you are going to be hated anyways, then you just might as well do what you need to do to get the job done.

In general, I think the entire conflict has been a watershed moment for Jews for both here in Israel and especially for those living abroad.  For Israelis, it has been a watershed because the nature of Hamas’s attack capabilities – both in terms of missiles and attack tunnels – was fully revealed.  The attack tunnels have especially captured the imagination of people because no one can now argue that if we just leave them alone, then they too will let us be.  Clearly, their desire to capture and kill Israelis supersedes anything else, including the well-being of their own people.  The fact that tunnels have been dug to within feet of nursery schools and dining halls, has united the always fractious political spectrum in Israel.  Even the Left cannot find a logical justification for these tunnels and have come out in support of the campaign. None of this sits well with the narrative that there are reasonable people over there who will jump at the chance to negotiate in good faith if only given the chance.  All of this means that there is no public pressure on the government to end the campaign before it its objectives are met.

For Diaspora Jews, this entire experience has been a wake-up call, the likes of which have not been experienced in over a generation.  The unleashed terror campaign by pro-Palestinian thugs in Europe is a harbinger of the end of Jewish communal life in Europe.  In the wake of the brutal attacks on Jewish synagogues, Jewish Businesses and Jewish homes, I have no doubt that immigration from France will grow dramatically in the coming months.  It is already at record levels.  If governments fail to decisively combat this anti-Semitism, other communities may also begin to reassess their calculus regarding emigration.  Hungary’s Jews in particular are already sitting on their suitcases and this conflict will likely only further serve to alienate them from society at large.

In the United States and Canada, thanks to social media such as FB and Twitter, many Jews are for the first time seeing what people really think about them and it has left them feeling vulnerable and upset. Certainly, a whole generation of young Jews – especially those who have been on Birthright – are witnessing and experiencing the irrational outpouring of hatred and demonization of the Jewish state and it does not jive with their personal experience of Israel.  This will certainly affect their sense of security and identity in ways that we cannot yet even fathom.

Meanwhile, the US administration has doubled down on its one-sided efforts to secure a cease fire.  For now, this effort has had exactly the opposite impact and has led to increased firing on Ben-Gurion airport.  After all, the only tangible accomplishment that Hamas can point to is the shuttering of the airport – Israel’s main link to the outside world thanks to the FAA ban on flying to Israel.  Today it was announced that this ban will be extended another day, even though there were far fewer missile launched towards Israel and none came close to the airport.  This has all the hallmarks of a coordinated effort at economic warfare against the State of Israel and it is clear that the Obama administration is actively fomenting this travesty.

In other News:

Al Wafa hospital was targeted today after several days of warning that the place needs to be evacuated immediately.  The Palestinians would love to proffer this as a war crime, but there is the inconvenient fact of secondary explosions indicating the existence of a missile cache on site.  Here is the raw, unedited footage.

Liel Leibovitz calculated that over 800,000 tons of cement were used for the tunnels and that this was an amount equal to seven Burj Dubai’s.

Last, but definitely not least, a foreign worker from Thailand was killed this afternoon while working in a greenhouse near the Gaza border. A mortar scored a direct hit on him and he was declared dead upon arrival at the hospital. May his memory be a blessing to his family and friends.

PS  My apologies for any typos or non-sequiters.  It is exceedingly late and I have neither the strength nor the focus necessary to carefully proofread this right now.