What Gaza Is, And Isn’t
Most hospitals have been shelled. Almost every street is deserted. As are the few stores still open, whose shelves are mostly empty. Homes crumbled into ruins, sidewalks torn up by shells, buildings pulled to pieces for firewood, graves destroyed, and tombstones used as tables for open air meals. Dogs howl through the streets as an army of rats, seeking food, scamper under peoples’ feet. Many of those trapped in this cauldron are covered with lice and filth, while anxious and malnourished women and children watch passersby with wistful eyes.
This is the scene observed by a reporter who is no longer with us. He likely died over 100 years ago. And what was being described wasn’t Gaza. It was Vicksburg, Mississippi in the summer of 1863, while under siege by a Union Army commanded by Ulysses S. Grant during a pivotal battle in the American Civil War (as described in The Generals, by Nancy and Scott Anderson, pg. 309).
I have never fired a gun in anger, seen an actual bomb explode, or been subjected to anything even vaguely resembling the October 7 pogrom by Hamas or the brutal retaliation by Israel that has followed. And I will do whatever I reasonably can to never experience any of those horrors.
That said, what Gaza is undergoing is a violent siege in which both the innocent and the guilty are being maimed and killed. Not a campaign to exterminate Palestinians because they are Palestinians. Not genocide.
I am quite certain that distinction does not matter to those who are suffering in Gaza. It should, however, matter to the rest of us. Because America does not ally itself with genocidal regimes. There are no democracies in the Middle East save one – Israel. Which is also the only society in that region whose values – writ large – align with ours, and one of the very few military forces in the world that will willingly spill their blood and their treasure to help us.
The world has become stupid enough. Let’s not add to it
Once both sides realize that we are ALL God’s Children, and that God loves EACH one of us EQUALLY, then the the Biblical quote from Micah inscribed for all to see at the United Nations in New York City: “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks”, shall become a reality.
And “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
It is possible. If we make it so.
The 2 commenters above cite Communist quotes. One is from the U.N. which is NO friend to the U.S. and/or Israel. And, the other is not relevant. I guess the two commenters have no clue as the radical Muslim philosophy of killing/murdering ALL Jews and then Americans. They talk “kumbaya” but offer no solution to the enduring problem. Let’s remember that the Jews have lived on the land they reside in for 4,000 years. The Palestinians have been there for less than 100 years.
How about: Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel”. Psalm 2. Or, “The Lord is King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land”. Psalm 10:16.` Or, how about “O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah.” Psalm59:5.
My quote, which is the rest of the one chosen by Mr. Cullen, is from the Book of Isiah. It is is part of the New Testament. The UN used it. So has every serious religious leader in living memory.
There is no such thing as ‘the Palestinian people, this was a rebranding name, for the people formally known as the riff raff chased out of Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Persia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other lands in the region. The Colosseum in Rome was built in 69 BC by the Roman emperor with loot stolen by the Roman army when they sacked Jerusalem populated and organized by the Jews. The Gaza strip had a ‘disenfranchised’ population of 1.6 million in the 1990s and today of 2.8 million folks, they have only ruined and over populated what was a nice vacation resort and they are all members of the Hamas reserve force. When 8 year old Israeli girls can roller blade over the entire flattened length of Gaza the IDF will have completed their mission.
I stand corrected about Micah, Mr. Leven.
“TJ” the Jews moved to what became Israel about 3,500 years ago. The Phillistines moved to the five cities that includes Gaza about the same time. The U.N. Quote on the HQ in NYC is from the Book of Isiah, which is from the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament, which predate communism by several millennia. How about “ Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord” (not yours.)
Hey P.C., you missed the entire point. The U.N. is NO friend of Israel and the United States and has never been. Whatever quotes they put on their HQ in NYC is a hoax and hogwash. They don’t even believe in Christianity of any kind and allow the murder of Christians all over the world, including in Red China, North Korea, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, India, Syria, Saudi Arabia, et al. The U.N. has done nothing to condemn this extermination. So, you’ve missed the point entirely.