A Pretty Firm Grip on the Ears

Sharing Options

In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to preface my remarks with any of these qualifications, but then again, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t have our perennial crisis in the Middle East. And so it would be that I would not have to say anything at all . . . in a perfect world.

But here are the qualifications. Israel is a sinful nation, and they need to hear the message of Christ desperately. They are a Western nation, transplanted by Zionists into a troubled part of the world, said transplanting not commending itself to me as having been a good idea. They share the strengths of the West, as well as all the decadent weaknesses. They are in an extraordinarily challenging situation, largely created by the lords of the earth drawing hubristic lines on the map after the First World War. In short, they have a grizzly bear by the ears. On the bright side, they currently have a pretty firm grip on those ears, but the long term prospects are not rosy.

I say all that as a preface so that I might give as resounding a statement of support for Israel in the current conflict as I possibly can. One of the deadliest traps in analyzing conflicts between nations is arbitrarily to postulate moral equivalence where there is none. There are multiple situations where a “faults on both sides” approach just won’t cut it, and this is one of them. If you want to know the difference we are dealing with, Israel uses its missiles to defend its children, while Hamas uses its children to defend its missiles. That’s all you really need to know about this conflict.

I have gone over this before, but it needs to be said again and again. Terrorism is not to be defined as what the big army accuses the little army of doing. That is way too facile. Hamas targets civilians deliberately, as a matter of cold policy, as a matter of course. Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to prevent civilian

Trolling for aggression in Gaza.
Trolling for aggression in Gaza.

casualties. Simply on the basis of what both sides openly commit themselves to, we should be able to take it from there. We should simply condemn the avowed depravity of Hamas, and not allow them to distract anybody by wailing about “the conditions” that drove them to it. The conditions that drive them to these insanities are nothing but the smoking craters left over from the previous round of insanities.

I have been writing recently about the irrational hatreds that envy generates and sustains. No better example of this can be seen than the current conflict between Gaza and Israel.

It is manifest that the inhabitants of Gaza will not be ruled by Israel, and they cannot rule themselves. In response, the West’s regnant nitwits gather themselves up to full height, look pretty solemn, and then reaffirm their commitment to paying the depraved miscreants of Hamas to stay on top. We do this so that Palestinian children may continue to live in the meat grinder at the bottom.

But in the decadent West, what counts is moral posturing. Do you actually want to help the Palestinian kids, or do you want to be seen as wanting to help them? Do you want to help Palestinian kids, or do you want a culturally sanitized context for telling us all what you really think about Jews?

Despite the apparent hopelessness of the whole situation there, there are a number of things we could do that would bring about marked improvements, almost immediately. But unfortunately, all the reforms I would propose would start with a cessation of shelling out millions as pay for continuing the stupidity. And in the current climate, a proposal that we stop paying millions to incentivize suicidal stupidity is, alas, a bridge too far.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
11 Comments
Oldest
Newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
katecho
katecho
9 years ago

I’m not aware of a logical, clean, and internationally “above reproach” way for a nation to deal with an enemy that simply will not recognize that it has been defeated. It’s always going to appear bad for the victor to keep fighting when everyone else can obviously see that the enemy was soundly defeated. Attempting a balanced, discriminating, tit-for-tat military response just looks like a cat playing with a mouse (attrition until the mouse eventually expires). On the other hand, a heavy, indiscriminate, disproportionate response will appear to be genocide. I think that Hamas knows this all very well. So… Read more »

jay niemeyer
jay niemeyer
9 years ago

For what it’s worth…. the heartiest amen musterable! There are two wrongs, certainly. There is not the slightest equivalence between the factions.

RFB
RFB
9 years ago

To both Pastor Wilson and katecho, With sincere respect to both of your writings, any “solution” based upon facts and truth is moot when one party is not concerned about facts or truth. The people who act as the titular leaders of the people called Palestinians do not care about “legitimacy”, just like Stalin did not. (“The Pope! How many divisions has he got?”) I carry no theological brief for Israel; I do support its right to defend itself. When one’s enemy has an overt stated position of seeing you dead, and to keep attempting that until they succeed, then… Read more »

Andrew W
Andrew W
9 years ago

I’ve been wondering for about a decade why Israel doesn’t simply say “We’re implementing the Balfour Declaration borders. “Occupied territories” are now fully part of Israel, and everyone currently there can either become Israeli permanent residents / citizens or repatriate. Terrorist responses will be dealt with harshly.”. Their current appeasement strategy is winning them neither friends nor peace.

Are they worried that Iran might respond with a declaration of all-out war?

Ohioan
Ohioan
9 years ago

The tactics of Hamas are deplorable, but they’re also rock-solid evidence that Israeli sovereignty doesn’t encompass the occupied regions. If you can’t stop people in one part of your (putative) country from firing deadly missiles at people in other parts of it, then it isn’t really your country, no matter what borders the international community accepts. Definitional to the nation-state is the idea of a monopoly on violence. Where that monopoly doesn’t exist, it doesn’t make sense to talk about sovereignty. Another foundational aspect of legitimacy is the consent of the governed. Well, the Palestinians [i]don’t[/i] consent. They’re pretty unanimous… Read more »

BJ
BJ
9 years ago

Let me give the required caveats: Israel is right, Hamas wrong. Hamas is a terrorist organization that needs to be wiped from the face of the earth. Israel is way too kind to the Gazan territory for it being a war zone and all. The national media in America and Europe are showing a tendency towards antisemitism in their coverage of the conflict. This idea of proportionality is stupid and immoral to a high degree. But I don’t expect intelligence to manifest among progressives and fascist (sorry for the redundancy). Is Israel supposed to let some folks die to make… Read more »

JohnM
JohnM
9 years ago

@Ohioan – “Definitional to the nation-state is the idea of a monopoly on violence. Where that monopoly doesn’t exist, it doesn’t make sense to talk about sovereignty.” Well, no not quite. Just because a government can’t stop all other violent actors all the time doesn’t mean it is not sovereign, not as long as those others are obliged to run or hide from the government. Now when it ends up the other way around, as it sometimes does, then the one time government has lost sovereignty. As for the consent of the governed being foundational to legitimacy, well maybe. Which… Read more »

John C
John C
9 years ago

You know…. I always wondered what was so wrong with putting CONDITIONS on money…. Like…. Oh… Say you want our Zillion Dollars in Cash, to spend on “Humanitarian Aid” (Cough) and whatnot…. The conditions will be…. You allow US 100% unfettered access for OUR Christian missionaries to preach the Word of Christ… However many missionaries WE want to send, Wherever we want to send them… to Preach and Teach whoever we find who will listen…. Wherever they are…. AND… NO persecution what-so-ever towards anyone Listens or converts to Christianity… That would be OK with me…. I would be happy to… Read more »

timbushong
9 years ago

You know….
I always wondered what was so wrong with putting CONDITIONS on money….

I know, right? As in, “He who pays the piper…” and all.

Jane Dunsworth
Jane Dunsworth
9 years ago

BJ, so long as you don’t omit the parts where many of the New Englanders had already settled in Moscow, that their ancestors had lived there on and off for thousands of years, and the feds gave the whole rest of the state of Idaho to the other Muscovites, only Boise suddenly decided it didn’t want them “messing up” any part of the state other than Moscow. Somehow Boise always gets left out of this story.

jack
jack
9 years ago

Seems to me if you are going to support Israel, confirm their right to defend themselves even when the rockets and bases of operations are coming from civilian areas, hospitals, schools, etc. and this all means theat women and children get killed in your defense. All correct judgements in my view.

Taken that stance also means acknowledging that “Just War Theory” was never biblical law, has major flaws and does not apply here with modern weapons, tactics and Technology being deployed in warfare by the Totaly Depraved.