Thoughts on Israel and Hamas

 

I agree wholeheartedly with Andrew Klavan in this interview: all Jew hatred is God hatred. Jews are hated because they represent the moral law, the demand to make something better of ourselves. Everything else is alibi.

Michael Knowles is here as the voice of Catholicism, but I strongly agree with Klavan and not him in understanding Christianity as a branch emerging from the Jewish tree, not something that supersedes Judaism. Any more than the covenant with Noah was cancelled by the covenant with Abraham, or the covenant with Abraham by the covenant with Moses. God does not renege on his promises. This point is made repeatedly in the New Testament.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

Klavan also points out that Israelis are not colonizers. This is another example of the attempted mind control through the illegitimate use of language I posted about yesterday. A colony by definition lacks self-government, and is controlled by some parent state. Israel has no parent state. 

Should pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protests be made illegal in Canada, as in France? Technically, they already are illegal, because they violate the “Hate Laws.” But inevitably, such laws are always used selectively, to suppress groups out of favour. They are of no help in the face of real hate.

I understand why such demonstrations make Jewish Canadians feel unsafe. I still oppose banning them; this is where free speech is put to the test. Were I a Jew, I would feel safer knowing where the threat is coming from. The Devil’s favourite con is convincing us he does not exist: then he gets to act with impunity.

Should the US bomb Iran over this? As things stand, the average Iranian is pro-American. Getting bombed would rally many behind the corrupt and hated government. And taking out Iran’s oil facilities is not a great idea either. We’re already boycotting Russian oil, and refusing to allow fracking and pipelines at home. Why not just bomb Washington and London and get it over with?

Should Israel, as is being suggested in some quarters, just expel everyone from Gaza? Not possible. No Arab country will take them in, because that would be abetting Israel’s ethnic cleansing. No Western democracy should, because that would mean endangering their existing Jewish population. 

The IDF can huff and puff, but there is no military solution here. I think of this passage from Heart of Darkness:

In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech—and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives—he called them enemies!—hidden out of sight somewhere.

You cannot subdue a hostile population with weapons, if they are not prepared to accept defeat.