@2024-01-23—A MOST CYNICAL WAR

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I thought Putin’s war on Ukraine was the most cynical war I knew of in modern times. Then Hamas started the Israel-Hamas War.

Putin at least is following the historical Russian national character, in its dealings with Russia’s neighbors. Hamas takes a page from the national character of the biblical Amalekites, whatever their actual descent.

Hamas may be many things, but stupid is not one of them. Sociopaths and psychopaths—whether they be individuals or groups—typically are clever indeed, and persuasive. That is what makes them so very, very dangerous.

Hamas’ attack upon Israeli civilians not only was diabolically brutal, but diabolically clever.[א] The same is true of its years of preparation for the attack and the subsequent defense. Hamas had to know from the beginning that what has happened to Gaza (and the West Bank) up to this writing, would happen inevitably. I do mean everything that has happened. The only alternative is unthinkable: that Israel would simply “roll over and play dead”. (As “the kids” say these days: “In what universe would that ever happen?”)

Before we start crying “genocide against Gaza” (with Hamas, and with those they deceive), let us remember the real definition of the word (Oxford): “the murder of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group, with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” Since its founding, the State of Israel never has sought to destroy (as a nation) either the Palestinians or anyone else. Except perhaps for the United States (and by the same means: precision weaponry), no armed force does more than the Israeli Defense Force to avoid “collateral damage” among civilians. The Palestinians of Gaza are dying in such numbers because Hamas uses the whole civilian population as human shields. Only criminal minds do such a thing.

Contrast this with the horrifyingly long list of those who have sought genocide against the Israelis and Jews in general (since the Holocaust, mind you). Nobody among them has made any secret of this aim.[ב]

For Hamas, no matter what happens in the end, they “win”. They either “win” as victors or else they “win” as political and/or religious martyrs. At the very least, they hope to gain tremendous “leverage” in the long run against the State of Israel, by turning the rest of the world against it. One cannot reason with people like that. One cannot make peace with people like that. PM Benjamin Netanyahu obviously knows this. Regrettably, it may be hard to see this when one’s own family members have been raped, killed, and/or taken captive by people like Hamas.

Hamas has proven that it cares no more for the Palestinians than it does for the Israelis. It is willing to sacrifice tens of thousands (perhaps ultimately, hundreds of thousands if not millions) of Palestinian civilians, and to make the entire civilian population of Gaza suffer horrendously and needlessly, for its single-minded political cause: to destroy not only the State of Israel, but every Jew in it. It is they—not the State of Israel or the Israeli Defense Force—which has a genocidal mentality. Again, Hamas makes no secret of this. They deserve universal condemnation—indeed, they deserve far more, but leave that aside.

Next time you see the incredible suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza, remember who really is responsible for it. Remember that this is exactly what too many of Israel’s neighbors since 1947 have wanted to do to the Israelis. And if you’re biblically inclined, remember whose side God is on nationally.[ג]

Yes, there are terrifying biblical prophecies against the national Houses of Israel and Judah, because of their eventually unequaled defiance of God and injustice toward man.[ד] But what will happen to Edom, Moab, Ammon, Egypt, Assyria, and other nations afterward will be even more terrible, because of their unrelenting hatred of God’s chosen people. And part of that divine punishment will happen at the hands of the survivors of the time of “Jacob’s trouble”.[ה]

This punishment will not be “murder”. It will be justice, completely and tragically earned. How easily current events could lead—very quickly—to the kind of hardness of heart that would justify such eventual divine punishment! 

jhw (יוחנן רכב)

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[א] I use “diabolically” in its plain, literal, biblical meaning. One also may argue from secular, Jungian psychology that some “devilish” or “destructive” archetype—a form of either perception or decision making that is rooted at the very base of its collective psychotic mind—must have been involved.

[ב] I wonder how many Israelis remember Psalms 120 (among others) thanks to this circumstance.

[ג] One passage out of many suffices: (Zec 2:8 KJV) For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.

[ד] The Jewish settlers on the West Bank (and those who enable them) ought to remember this: (Hos 5:10 NKJV) “The princes of Judah are like those who remove a landmark; I will pour out my wrath on them like water.” John Gill: “The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound [KJV],.... Or landmark, which to do was contrary to the law, Deu_19:14; and has always been reckoned a heinous sin among all nations, and is only done by such who have no regard to right and wrong, and by them secretly….” See the whole context of this comment.

[ה] One passage out of many suffices: (Isa 11:14 KJV) But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them. (These nations comprise the modern Palestinians of Gaza and the modern Jordanians, mainly.)