Woke Up This Morning and What Did I See?

Live from the war in Israel day 19

When I woke up this morning, I heard that the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, had the following to say: “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced, and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.” He then added, “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

I am aware that the United Nations is not a friend of Israel, but you would think that the Secretary-General would have a bit more subtlety when making such a statement. But there is nothing subtle about it. He is saying that what Hamas did on October 7th is the same as what Israel is doing in Gaza now and actually implying that Israel is worse.

Talk about blaming the victim. If we had only offered them a state and peace settlement for an eighth time, instead of only 7, perhaps this would not have happened. Perhaps if we took all our troops and 20 settlements out of Gaza, allowing the Gazans to rule themselves and prove they could be good neighbors, perhaps this wouldn't have happened.

Oh, we did leave Gaza completely and it happened anyway.

Dear Mr. Guterres, the main reason that the Palestinians do not have a state of their own is because they do not want one; they want ours. Perhaps, instead of blaming the Jews for the lack of peace, you can look to see if perhaps the Palestinians should share some of the blame.

You could even try to see if the UN might have had a hand in it after funding schools and learning materials that teach Palestinian children to hate Jews (not Israelis) and that martyrdom is the highest ideal.

Then I read the NYTimes (I still don't know why) which ran a story implying that the evidence that Israel provided and that was reviewed by every major (and some minor) intelligence agencies in the world, did not show that the PIJ was responsible for the bomb that hit the hospital …….( wait for it) ……..  parking lot, in Gaza. From the headline they gave (which I think has since been changed a bit), it made it seem that their experts, who apparently know more than any of these intelligence agencies, determined that the footage from Al Jazeera did not show a missile gone astray from the Gazan side. They even use the most nuanced undertones to imply that there is a small chance it was Israel’s fault.

Now, if you recall, it was the NYTimes who just last week spread a false story that ignited a modern-day blood libel throughout the world. They even sort of apologized that they messed up (without admitting the damage inflicted on Jewish communities all over the world).

I guess that did not sit right with them, so they ran this story. Now, in their defense, if you actually read the whole story, it says that nothing else about what Hamas said the hospital incident makes sense, like the fact that the hospital wasn't even hit, or that there are no remains of any Israeli missile, or that it is very likely that nowhere near 471 people were killed. However, if someone is reading just the headlines, which I know I do sometimes, that is not the impression one would get.

I would like to end with a partial translation of an article that Ran Baratz, a conservative Israeli journalist, wrote in Makor Rishon on Friday: “In these circumstances, no enemy can defeat us. We have many problems to solve, without question. We suffered a horrific blow which will echo in Jewish history for eternity. But even in that moment when the leadership and the state completely failed, we were not dependent on the goodwill of others. There was no cowardice here, rather the opposite, truly exceptional heroism. And that is why this people will defeat its enemies.”

The translation and the full article, which is fantastic, appear here on Daniel Gordis’s site, which you all should subscribe to. It is the second story.

"When the state disappeared, unfathomable courage emerged" and "it's time to exile all Gazans to a different part of the world"