The tragedy of the Palestinian civilians

Cover image credit Hillel Fuld.

The entire world keeps a close count of ‚civilian casualties‘ in Gaza – numbers exclusively provided by Hamas.

Without further questions, everybody points their finger at Israel and screams: “Shame!!!” and “See what you did?” and “How dare you?“ 

Let’s turn back time to October 8th, 2023 and imagine an alternative scenario:

The United Nations Security Council votes unanimously to condemn Hamas for war crimes.

They and the majority of the world leaders demand the immediate release of all hostages.

They further order Qatar to extradite the Hamas leadership – that lives there in luxury – to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where they would be tried for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

The media uncovers and reports on all of Hamas‘ crimes in detail.

Humanitarian organizations refuse to send funding and aid to Hamas and demand that an independent organization distribute it directly to civilians.

Universities ban all forms of hate speech against Jews (same as other minorities), calling for genocide and the elimination of the State of Israel as well as any expression of support for Hamas’ atrocities committed on October 7th or their denial.   

The UN calls on Egypt and other Arab countries to accept refugees from Gaza.

What would have happened? Would we have all these casualties?

Probably not.

Hamas started a war in Gaza, they have no chance of winning. But they also ensure that Israel can never win either.  All they need is the sympathy of the West (sympathy for the devil?). 

In a perfect world, we would have learned from the past and seen through the war strategy of the Palestinians long ago. We would have understood that Palestinian lives are the carefully calculated price their leaders are willing to pay.

Tragic, but true.

The price is required for them to win over the UN, the media, academia, social networks, and public opinion in democratic countries, where the leadership depends on it. 

These are the battlefields where Hamas is winning. It’s a much bigger and maybe more important front.

As horrific as it is, civilian casualties are part of Hamas’ strategy that “allows them to conduct offensive operations against a much stronger opponent and then avoid getting destroyed by the IDF’s vastly superior military capabilities”. Nick Freitas, an expert on military strategies and unconventional warfare, such as asymmetric warfare further explains in his video how that works. 

The lesson of the Vietnam War, according to Freitas is, “When fighting the West, you don’t defeat their military, you win their electorate and the way to do that is through the institutions which shape culture in the West.”

Palestinians have lobbied in the UN for decades. Hamas has hooked up with allies who finance their war and propaganda machines. They carefully and patiently manipulated Western public opinion by spreading lies through social and regular media and created a safety net for Palestinian terror.

And credit be given, where credit is due: Palestinians understand the strategies of asymmetric warfare. In fact, they keep optimizing it as they go. 

While calling on Israel to stop fighting may seem like the humane thing to do, it plays right into the terrorists’ strategy. 

Sure, in the short term, civilian lives may be spared. But Hamas gets to continue terrorizing and exploiting the Gazan population, stealing the aid provided by humanitarian organizations, and rebuilding their terror infrastructure to become more powerful. It means setting up the next, even more vicious, genocidal massacre and helping them pave the way to try and create a Jew-free world.

Bomb shelters in the Gaza Envelope

*photo credit Cori Shalit

I’ve always wanted to do this: create a photo gallery of the graffiti painted on the bomb shelters scattered everywhere throughout the southern part of Israel.

During our many trips around the country, they always caught my attention. At every bus stop, at streetcorners, and sometimes in seemingly random locations, there’s a migunit – freely translated that means “small shielding“ 

A migunit is a small bomb shelter without doors or windows to protect people out in the open from Hamas rockets. You know, kids on their way home from school, or grandpa walking the dog.  

You can’t miss them, because all miguniot (plural for migunit) are beautifully painted. 

I always thought it was an amazing idea, that presented a quite surrealistic view. They are places of fear, so at least they look inviting. The whole concept is very unique and telling for Israel. The entrances to public shelters in the Kibbutzim are also painted in colourful images.

I planned to take a trip just to take pictures of all this artwork. I’m grateful, that someone has done it and she likely found the most amazing ones. Here’s Cori Shalit’s photo essay published after October 7th:

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-symbolic-dissonance-between-death-and-life-saving-shelters/

Here are some more images, that aren’t in the article, but you can find them on Cori Shalit’s Instagram page bombsheltersofisrael.

Never Again or Never Happened?

WARNING: This article is not politically correct. So, if you don’t like being provoked, don’t read.

The reason I am sharing this article is this: Not even a day passed before claims were made that the October 7th massacre did not happen or that it was orchestrated by Israel.

The following article was written by the Spanish author Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez. It’s not new, but it’s very relevant these days. Already at the beginning of this millennium, the young Spaniard described his thoughts and feelings with frightening frankness and today, more than ever, they give us something to think about.

ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ

Uncomfortable questions about Gaza and Israel

War is terrible. The images coming out of Gaza bring tears to our eyes. We cringe when we see the massive destruction and the number of casualties rising daily. 

We can all agree that the violence in the region has to stop. But every time we start discussing why there’s violence in the first place, and who’s to blame, we get lost in the complications of this conflict. The arguments throw us back in history and confuse our common sense. 

So let’s simplify it just a little bit: One side aims for genocide, and the other side resists and fights to maintain its freedom. I’m sure you can guess which side is which. And I’m also sure you find this completely over-simplified, exaggerated, and one-sided. I mean, after all, there are two sides to every story, right? And both sides have blood on their hands.

Keep asking questions! 

I get it, you are against all forms of violence. Still, you feel the need to compare, so you can decide which side is less wrong. Here’s the thing, you don’t need to take sides. It’s not important that you take sides. But it is important that you stick to your own values. 

What’s important is that you understand the truth and don’t let yourself be swept away by popular, dangerous narratives. Ask questions that others don’t ask. Ask questions that feel uncomfortable. Ask questions that help expose who’s telling the truth, who’s hiding the truth, and who’s flat-out lying and when.

So let’s ask some of these questions.

Israel vs. Hamas – a challenge to your perception of truth?

If I’ve learned one thing in life, it is this: you can never know the whole truth about anything. Because the truth changes depending on your perspective. But you can get close to it. To do that, you need to be prepared to crush anything and everything you ever believed. Most people can’t, or won’t.

I want to introduce to you two people who have completely turned their view of the world upside down. It took them much courage to admit the truth once they saw it with their own eyes. It even put them in considerable danger. 

No Revenge on Gaza

Israel’s actions have never been about revenge or retaliation. It’s been about making sure this kind of shit doesn’t happen. 

Our fight has never been against Palestinians. We have simply been trying to ensure that those who come to massacre us will not succeed. 

But now they have. 

What kind of war?

It’s been 10 days since the massacre. 10 days of continuously unfolding horror stories. Whenever I think I’ve heard the worst, there’s more. The news and my social media feeds are packed with videos and reports of survivors and victims’ family members. An endless stream of sickening, frightening accounts of what people went through and are going through.

At first, it was the pictures of missing people. Family members were desperately asking for help in locating their loved ones. Then the media was filled with images shared by the terrorists of their atrocities and barbarianism. Slowly, the focus shifted to the eyewitness footage taken by survivors. They are telling unfathomable stories, together with the heroic actions of people who had saved or helped them. 

My October 7th, 2023

We had planned a day trip. Through the stunning desert along the Gazan and Egyptian border and back across the Ramon Crater.

At 6:45 my alarm goes off.

I’m immediately aware of the distant rumbling. I know what this is. It’s the sound of rockets from Gaza and the iron dome intercepting them.

“Can’t be!” my mind refuses to accept, „There have been no signs of tension, no warnings from our side, and no threats from the Gazan side. It’s been calm.”

But the rumbling doesn’t stop. It’s continuous, and even though it’s far, it’s intense. I get out of bed to wash my face. There are notifications on WhatsApp already. Sure enough, the trip is cancelled – there’s rocket fire from Gaza.

I make coffee. „It’ll be over soon, no reason this should escalate.“ 

Little did I know!

The text messages didn’t stop rolling in. Video after video of Hamas terrorists, armed to their teeth driving through Israeli towns, appear in WhatsApp groups.

Honestly, I thought they were fake. This looked like ISIS back in the day. I never believed it was possible here.

Soon after, the media confirmed they were real. That’s when I realized, this was worse than anything I’ve experienced in over 30 years in Israel. Whatever happens next, there’s no going back to the normal we have known.

The sirens started going off all over the center of Israel. We made sure all our family members were safe and taken care of. We prepared our security room and, just as we had closed the heavy iron window shutter, the sirens in our village squeaked.

For the next three hours, they went off every fifteen minutes.

At the same time, we kept getting news of Hamas invading the south of Israel, shooting everyone, burning down houses and murdering entire families in their homes. Some got murdered sleeping in their own bedrooms.

Some were taken hostage and held in their living rooms. Parents saw their children shot in front of their eyes.

Hamas kidnapped small children, teenagers, and old women and shot men who were trying to defend their families with their private guns (if they had any).

Soon people reported dead bodies lying around in the streets of towns.

And in the desert? There was a big music festival where over 3000 people danced and celebrated life. Hamas terror squads barged in, heavily armed and shooting into the crowd. People ran for their lives in all directions. But where can you run to in the middle of the desert?

The terrorists caught them, killed or kidnapped and dragged them on motorbikes and trucks back into Gaza. The bodies of young women were stripped naked and pulled onto the trucks to be displayed to a cheering crowd driving back into Gaza.

I’ll stop here.
It brings me to tears and turns my stomach inside out.

At the end of the day, there were 300 Israelis dead, about 1800 wounded (numbers still rising), and hundreds are still missing. No one knows how many were taken hostage into Gaza.

I wrote this on October 8th. By the time of publishing, the number of people killed in the massacre had risen to about 1300 – with about 300 still not identified, that’s how badly they were mutilated. Around 200 people are being held hostage, among them citizens of Europe, the US and more. We stopped counting the injured.

Herr Blanke’s Middle Finger and A Lesson in Responsibility

Herr Blanke entered and, while traversing the classroom, announced, “I have some unfortunate news, I will no longer teach you Math and Physics”. He reached the blackboard and turned to study our bewildered faces.

Silence. At the age of 11, you begin not to like your teachers, but this one was different. He was our class teacher, and we loved him – everybody loved him.

Herr Blanke was old-school and strict. But he also had a sneaky sense of humor and a mischievous smile to go with it. He respected his students and forgave our youthful foolishness. 

Here he was, scanning our reaction with a dead-serious expression. This wasn’t a joke.     

Laugh or Die!

I’ve been living in Israel for over 30 years.

Life in this diverse society and agitated neighborhood of hostile countries has taught me many things. Or should I attribute it to Jewish wisdom? -Grown over decades and centuries of struggling for survival and against hatred while holding on to the fundamental belief that every human life is holy.

Among everything I’ve learned, this may be the most important: Humor!

Keep laughing, no matter what! Find the irony in everything and know that everything is temporary.

Humor is like a remedy, and in times of intense fear, it’s hard to swallow. It took me many years to understand the value of it. How can you joke about anything when suicide bombers blow up busses every day? (Remember those? They were our daily routine for months, now they are forgotten.)

What could be funny about the UN singling out Israel and adopting resolution after resolution while turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed in Yemen, China, Syria, to name just a few?

But the truth is, what can you do? Cry? Scream?

None of that would make the situation better; on the contrary.

Humor is the Israelis‘ way of dealing with whatever is thrown at us, whether it’s rockets, condemnation, anti-Semitism, or threats. For someone like me who wasn’t born here, it felt disrespectful, as if people weren’t taking the situation seriously or weren’t aware of the gravity of the situation.

I was wrong.

Laughter helps us get through.

When you cannot allow yourself to fall apart because you need to keep functioning, find the irony! When your kids are trembling and can’t sleep because they were ripped out of their dreams by rocket sirens too many times and you feel like sobbing yourself, how do you stay strong for them? Find something to laugh about.

And when you need to keep a cool head in your zoom meetings the next morning, even though every tiny noise makes you jump, the only way to cope is to laugh at yourself.

*In the title image to the right: Hamas rockets attacking – to the left: Israel’s Iron Dome defending

Israeli Humor Kicks Into Survival Mode When Crises – And Rockets – Hit