You don't have a clue, do you? You talk about Holocaust - but you miss the most important thing about it: the aim, the intention. The hideous conditions in the concentration camps were not the aim. The aim was annihilation of European Jews, all 11 million of them.
Hamas has the same aim - to kill every Jew in Israel and annihilate the state of Israel.
Israel, on the other hand, has very different aim - to ensure peace and safety of all it's citizens (including some 20% who are Arab, by the way, but what do you care?) To reach this goal Israel has no choice but to defeat Hamas.
We tried all other ways:
- we gave them independency in Gaza, uprooting prosperous villages (built on legally purchased land, by the way - but what do you care?) and withdrew every single solder. They elected terrorist organization of Hamas to rule them and answered with rockets;
- we tried to help them built self-sustaining society providing water, electricity, building materials and all the necessities, much of it for free. They used concrete to built the tunnels under the border to attack Israeli villages.
- we spent milliards on a border wall that will prevent building more tunnels and secure our border. They accumulated hundreds of thousands of rockets and were firing them over the border aiming deliberately on civilian objects. They used helium provided for medical equipment to send incendiary balloons on our fields and hand-planted forests
- we spent more milliards to develop Iron Dome anti-rocked system that guards us against their rockets and drones that catch incendiary balloons. Than they stormed the border with bulldozers, entered the villages and towns on the early Holiday morning and killed 1,200 civilians in their homes. It was not enough for them to just kill - they raped, burned alive, mutilated bodies and took some 250 hostages of all ages over 100 of whom are still hold by terrorists in Gaza.
It become clear there is no other way for Israel but to eliminate Hamas as a entity. It is what Israel is doing now. If we didn't care for the life of civilians in Gaza the war could have been won much faster. It is the afford to save as many innocent lives as possible that takes time and cost Israel lives of it's best sons and daughters.
It is strange that you, as a Jew, have compaction only for Palestinians. What about Israelis held hostage? What about a generation of Jewish kids who grew up under rockets in the town of Sderot, for instance? What about 3000 young people who danced at Nova festival? Even these of them who managed to survive will never be the same after what they witnessed. It was a sample of Holocaust all over again - not an effective and "clean" German version, but a hideous barbarically inhuman one.
You blame Israel for the rise of antisemitism in you safe bauble of Western civilization. It is classic Stockholm syndrome - you self-identify with the terrorists in the hope they would spare you. Place the blame where it is due - on the radical Muslim ideology and stupid uneducated Western liberals like you
Reading this I feel your despair. But despite too many innocents being killed, I still believe the Israelis are doing what they can to minimize these deaths. The tunnels make rooting out Hamas nearly impossible to do without collateral damage. Hamas hides behind their civilians and children and dead Palestinians are actually “good” for them in the court of public opinion.
All that being said, I also hate Netanyahu. He is forever tainted and needs to go.
Thank you for your courage in writing this article. I was raised Christian, but always felt close alignment with the Jewish people. I even practiced Judaism for several years. I read all the books on the holocaust and settlement of Israel after the war I could find. Now, it is hard to know how to talk to people about it, especially my friend who lives in Israel. I try to have empathy for her and what she is going through, but I also empathize with the Palestinian people. Once we see that we are all alike, just as deserving of life as any other, it becomes clear that we need to care for everyone and find solutions that are out of the box.
So for today, I believe in hope. And your last line ‘we are each other’ is grounding me in truth.
I told myself I wouldn’t tear up reading this. I held it together until I read the part about your dad. I am so glad that you two could reconcile across the generational gap. You are very fortunate that way…I know too many families, Israeli and Jewish whom are torn asunder because of the Likud’s short memory in remembering their foundation as a secular political party, but now instead look like the party of tRump.
Lauren thank you for having both the courage and the empathy to write this, it's important.
In 1962 my father was returning from Asia via the Mediterranean, stopping in Beirut. The city was then considered the jewel of middle east. He had part of a day free as so hired a car and asked the driver to show him the refugee camps. Not really understanding what had happened to cause all of this, he naievely asked the driver, "What will ever change this?" The driver responded, "These people have no hope and without that, there will never be any change." Here we are 60 years later and still they have no hope. Why has there never been serious consideration for a two state solution? I think the powers that be made enough mistakes after WWII, time to correct them.
When you demand that Hamas, Hezballah, Iran, Syria and all the other players in this game put down their arms, stop killing Jews, release the hostages- then we can talk - demanding Israel stop fighting to stop their destruction - go back to our Torah - listen to Hashem’s words and let them in - if you can’t do that - don’t call yourself a Jew. Stop feeling emotional and think - if someone attacks your family and will not stop until everyone is dead - what would you do? This is war - there are winners and losers - the losers will die. If not today, tomorrow. If you are for the destruction of Israel and anti-semitism then at least be honest about it. Feeling sorry for your enemy and supporting evil in this world is a choice - choose well because as you say no one will care if you supported evil - they will never see you as anything but a Jew. Instead of going down with us you need to fight to survive with us. Don’t blame Bibi - there are many who would do the same as he. This is never about us and it is arrogant to think it is - it is a holy war between good and evil. Who do you want to win?
"On Sundays, as a child, I’d watch my favorite TV show, “Abbott and Costello.” Then I’d watch whatever offerings Channel 13 (PBS in New York) had on the Holocaust. "
I will attribute this to a slip-up that can happen to anyone, and not because you didn't know: you refer to Bibi as Israel's president. He's not. He's prime minister.
You don't have a clue, do you? You talk about Holocaust - but you miss the most important thing about it: the aim, the intention. The hideous conditions in the concentration camps were not the aim. The aim was annihilation of European Jews, all 11 million of them.
Hamas has the same aim - to kill every Jew in Israel and annihilate the state of Israel.
Israel, on the other hand, has very different aim - to ensure peace and safety of all it's citizens (including some 20% who are Arab, by the way, but what do you care?) To reach this goal Israel has no choice but to defeat Hamas.
We tried all other ways:
- we gave them independency in Gaza, uprooting prosperous villages (built on legally purchased land, by the way - but what do you care?) and withdrew every single solder. They elected terrorist organization of Hamas to rule them and answered with rockets;
- we tried to help them built self-sustaining society providing water, electricity, building materials and all the necessities, much of it for free. They used concrete to built the tunnels under the border to attack Israeli villages.
- we spent milliards on a border wall that will prevent building more tunnels and secure our border. They accumulated hundreds of thousands of rockets and were firing them over the border aiming deliberately on civilian objects. They used helium provided for medical equipment to send incendiary balloons on our fields and hand-planted forests
- we spent more milliards to develop Iron Dome anti-rocked system that guards us against their rockets and drones that catch incendiary balloons. Than they stormed the border with bulldozers, entered the villages and towns on the early Holiday morning and killed 1,200 civilians in their homes. It was not enough for them to just kill - they raped, burned alive, mutilated bodies and took some 250 hostages of all ages over 100 of whom are still hold by terrorists in Gaza.
It become clear there is no other way for Israel but to eliminate Hamas as a entity. It is what Israel is doing now. If we didn't care for the life of civilians in Gaza the war could have been won much faster. It is the afford to save as many innocent lives as possible that takes time and cost Israel lives of it's best sons and daughters.
It is strange that you, as a Jew, have compaction only for Palestinians. What about Israelis held hostage? What about a generation of Jewish kids who grew up under rockets in the town of Sderot, for instance? What about 3000 young people who danced at Nova festival? Even these of them who managed to survive will never be the same after what they witnessed. It was a sample of Holocaust all over again - not an effective and "clean" German version, but a hideous barbarically inhuman one.
You blame Israel for the rise of antisemitism in you safe bauble of Western civilization. It is classic Stockholm syndrome - you self-identify with the terrorists in the hope they would spare you. Place the blame where it is due - on the radical Muslim ideology and stupid uneducated Western liberals like you
Reading this I feel your despair. But despite too many innocents being killed, I still believe the Israelis are doing what they can to minimize these deaths. The tunnels make rooting out Hamas nearly impossible to do without collateral damage. Hamas hides behind their civilians and children and dead Palestinians are actually “good” for them in the court of public opinion.
All that being said, I also hate Netanyahu. He is forever tainted and needs to go.
Thank you for your courage in writing this article. I was raised Christian, but always felt close alignment with the Jewish people. I even practiced Judaism for several years. I read all the books on the holocaust and settlement of Israel after the war I could find. Now, it is hard to know how to talk to people about it, especially my friend who lives in Israel. I try to have empathy for her and what she is going through, but I also empathize with the Palestinian people. Once we see that we are all alike, just as deserving of life as any other, it becomes clear that we need to care for everyone and find solutions that are out of the box.
So for today, I believe in hope. And your last line ‘we are each other’ is grounding me in truth.
I told myself I wouldn’t tear up reading this. I held it together until I read the part about your dad. I am so glad that you two could reconcile across the generational gap. You are very fortunate that way…I know too many families, Israeli and Jewish whom are torn asunder because of the Likud’s short memory in remembering their foundation as a secular political party, but now instead look like the party of tRump.
Lauren thank you for having both the courage and the empathy to write this, it's important.
In 1962 my father was returning from Asia via the Mediterranean, stopping in Beirut. The city was then considered the jewel of middle east. He had part of a day free as so hired a car and asked the driver to show him the refugee camps. Not really understanding what had happened to cause all of this, he naievely asked the driver, "What will ever change this?" The driver responded, "These people have no hope and without that, there will never be any change." Here we are 60 years later and still they have no hope. Why has there never been serious consideration for a two state solution? I think the powers that be made enough mistakes after WWII, time to correct them.
Am so relieved, to read your conclusions; genocide. Thank you.
When you demand that Hamas, Hezballah, Iran, Syria and all the other players in this game put down their arms, stop killing Jews, release the hostages- then we can talk - demanding Israel stop fighting to stop their destruction - go back to our Torah - listen to Hashem’s words and let them in - if you can’t do that - don’t call yourself a Jew. Stop feeling emotional and think - if someone attacks your family and will not stop until everyone is dead - what would you do? This is war - there are winners and losers - the losers will die. If not today, tomorrow. If you are for the destruction of Israel and anti-semitism then at least be honest about it. Feeling sorry for your enemy and supporting evil in this world is a choice - choose well because as you say no one will care if you supported evil - they will never see you as anything but a Jew. Instead of going down with us you need to fight to survive with us. Don’t blame Bibi - there are many who would do the same as he. This is never about us and it is arrogant to think it is - it is a holy war between good and evil. Who do you want to win?
"On Sundays, as a child, I’d watch my favorite TV show, “Abbott and Costello.” Then I’d watch whatever offerings Channel 13 (PBS in New York) had on the Holocaust. "
Never happened.
I will attribute this to a slip-up that can happen to anyone, and not because you didn't know: you refer to Bibi as Israel's president. He's not. He's prime minister.