Thursday, July 17, 2014

Pictures: why Israel defends itself


 It’s true: a picture is worth 1,000 words.
Consider the pictures you have seen of Arabs suffering in Gaza. Those pictures don’t just inform. They shape opinion. They create a moral statement. They even shape your definition of morality.
Look at that human suffering! How can we allow it? How can Israel do that?
These pictures, more than anything, have turned the world against Israel. No one cares that too many of these pictures are staged. No one cares that too many of the worst pictures are not of death or damage caused by Israel. No one cares that some of those pictures don’t even come from Gaza. They come from the horrific Arab-Arab killing orgy called Syria.
No one cares that they have been manipulated. What everyone cares about is, how can Israel inflict such pain on another human? Are Jews that barbaric?
Yes, the news suggests with its graphic depictions. Jews are that barbaric. That’s one reason why, some say, for world peace we must destroy Israel.
The truth, however, lies elsewhere. Morality lies elsewhere. Peace will not happen if Israel is destroyed.
Indeed, the raging dogs of Hell will be unleashed if Israel is destroyed. World Jihad will see to that.
Israel inflicts much pain on Gaza. The reason for that pain is not Jewish barbarity. It’s Arab barbarity.
The pain of those pictures exists because of Arab pressure upon its citizens to become human shields. Those pictures show you what happens to human shields. That’s barbaric. The horror of those pictures exists because of the Arab belief that an Arab should die as a martyr in order to find eternal bliss. Those pictures show you what really happens when Arab martyrs die. That’s barbarism.
The horror you see, in other words, does not so much come from Israel’s defending itself as it comes from Arab inhumanity. The pain in those pictures is real. But that pain doesn’t come from a sovereign state that has the right to defend itself. It comes from inhumane people driving their own citizens to pay the price of their own inhumanity.
Inhumane people want to kill Jews. They learn to kill Jews. They are encouraged to kill Jews. They dehumanize Jews.
They call Jews apes and pigs. They say apes and pigs must be slaughtered.
That’s the horror the Christianized West cannot comprehend. That’s the barbarism the Christianized West cannot understand. Therefore, it’s the barbaric horror the West refuses to look at.
They find it much easier to look at Jews. They find it much easier to accuse Jews.
In the Haftorah we will read in two days--on Shabbat--we learn what happens to those who would murder Jews. Israel, we are told, is sacred to G-d. Those who would commit evil upon the Jews carry guilt. They will suffer because of that guilt (Yirmiyahu 2:3, as translated in The Living Nach).
The Arab Middle East teaches a different lesson. It teaches us that, contrary to both Judaism and Christianity, compassion is not universal. Our Torah teaches us that there is a serious price to pay for actions G-d terms evil. But if, in the face of that evil, we demand compassion, then we create a problem that even the secular world understands.
We know the secular world understands this problem because of a saying created by that world: if we are compassionate towards the cruel, we end up being cruel to the compassionate.
This is an ugly lesson the Christianized West refuses to face. But it is the truth.
The pictures you see sell you a morality of Jew-hate. They exist to elicit your compassion for a culture of cruelty. They beg you to be merciful towards those who are ruthless.
They appeal to your sense of Christian love. They hate you. But they demand your sympathy.
Perhaps you should see something different. Perhaps a different picture will illustrate why Israel defends itself.
Perhaps a different picture will tell you why Israel must defend itself.
The online site below will show you how a war unfolds against a sovereign state. It gives you an animated look at real war in real time.
You will see the intensity of the Hamas rocket war against Israel. The site below uses a recorded real-time chronology in animated form. As you watch how the attacks flash in clusters around certain cities, think about this: no nation would tolerate such a concentrated assault on those cities.
 The population of the areas you will see attacked is greater than 65 per cent of Israel’s total population—more than 4 million people.
To put this into numbers, watch the animation. See if you can count fast enough to add up all the explosion-sites in Ashkelon, Ashdod and Tel Aviv.
No nation would tolerate such a vicious attack.
The site is:   http://redalert.co.il     
If the link does not work, go directly to the site. I do not know how long this site will be open.
 (Thanks to Yosef Rabin for publicizing this video).

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