It has been a horrible year — here at home and in Israel | Opinion
Goodbye 2023.
The annus horribilus year of 2023 is closing out. Thank goodness. Two bloody wars. An Iranian/Hamas power grab in the Middle East to offset Saudi-Israeli hopes of rapprochement dashed to smithereens on the sunny coast of the Mediterranean. More mass shootings. Russian revanchist murderousness.
Our democracy tested by the insane notion that an insurrectionist, twice impeached, criminally indicted candidate, possibly constitutionally disqualified for federal office, is leading the Republican Party in the race for its presidential nomination.
When will we awaken from this nightmare?
The idea of Iranian denials of even indirect responsibility for the massacre of innocent Israeli men, women and children celebrating the quest for peace at a music festival or asleep in their beds defies reasonable doubt. Sowing discord, financing Hamas and then denying responsibility seems a reach. Iranian leadership crying out each day “Death to Israel and death to America.”
This fundamentalism defies the logic of people like Richard Haas, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, saying that Iran wants to sell its oil to China and does not want to upset the trade dollars coming into its coffers.
Since when are jihadists deterred by facts? Jihadists want to die as martyrs. Jihad knows no boundaries; jihad sees the world from a perspective we Westerners will never understand. Ultra-Orthodox Jews do not shoot up a roomful of editorial cartoonists in Paris because they are lampooned or even demonized. Jihadists, however, are true believers. They follow their interpretation of the Quran. Does the Quran state that if one does not follow it, they should be put to death? Scholars disagree on this point. But the idea that there is room for this disagreement is troubling.
The media have been reporting endlessly about Palestinian victimization, including interviews with individuals in the street, scenes from hospitals, and the litany of how Israel has destroyed the infrastructure of Gaza. How can a society that has received billions in international funding for buildings, housing and schools, has diverted that money to build tunnels to attack Israel on some misguided notion that it is better than caring for its own people.
Hamas’ religious agenda is one of death and martyrdom. A murderer proudly calls his parents using a victim’s phone on Oct. 7, exclaiming he has killed 10 Jews “with his own hands” and that they should open their What’s App to see a photo of the Jews he has murdered. The parents respond that they hope that Allah protects their murderous son, without an ounce of regard for what he has done, or even an inkling of moral indignation.
The “end the cycle of violence” argument is a facile perversion of the logical argument that there is a moral equivalency of what Israel is doing in Gaza and what Hamas did in Israel. The IDF does not purposely target civilians, whom Hamas uses as human shields. At the same time, war is a horrible alternative with unintended consequences when terrorists refuse to accept reality. Israel is not going away. An enraged Israeli government neglected its security necessities to placate its religious fundamentalists and denigrate the Palestinian Authority by tolerating Hamas. The right-wing Israeli government is now on a mission to shield its own incompetence and atone for its blunders.
Apparently, Ivy League protesters see “from the river to the sea” as a call for freedom. It is, but it is a call for freedom from Jews in Israel. That will not happen.
Yes, it’s been a horrible year.
David Wieder writes in legal, historical and cultural affairs.
