Israel has a right to defend itself
Keep saying it. Cognitive dissonance is the mind-killer.
Despite what the loony Left, the terrorist-sympathising Jews, the tofu-eating wokerati say, Israel has a right to defend itself. Like South Africa did, back in the 80s. Like Ukraine does, now. Against a neighbouring country with a huge army, nuclear weapons and a God-complex. Israel has the right to defend itself.
Israel has the right to defend itself against all threats. Against rockets and guns, and knives and stones and pebbles and words. And threatening thoughts. Israel has the right to defend itself, to retaliate, to punish, to avenge unto the tenth generation. Israel has the right.
To defend itself.
Against terrorists who want nothing but violence, who are motivated by hate alone, who have no legitimate grievance, no justification for anger, not a single reason to resist. And against the families of terrorists, who, if they did not encourage them at first, are certainly a threat now, because Israel has a right to defend itself.
Israel has a right to defend itself against neighbourhoods that once voted for Hamas, against every wicked grandmother and grandfather, the mums and dads, who have no love for Israel, against apartments and houses and churches. Israel has a right to defend itself against all mosques. Against the hospitals that bathe the wounds of terrorists and terrorist sympathisers and terrorist shields and terrorist-in-waiting and potential terrorists, wherever they may hide.
Israel has a right to defend itself against babies in incubators. Against little boys with stones. Little girls with Instagram. Foreigners with TikTok, actors with platforms, politicians in hijabs.
What do we expect? Why must Israel alone be held to an unrealistic standards? Why must Israel, alone among the nations, hold back its mighty hand from punishing the ambulances and the journalists? Israel has suffered so much and it has a right.
We must be realistic. This is a war. And in war you must move whole populations, races, from their homes and from their neighbourhoods and make them walk for miles. War is messy. People get hurt. Israel is doing its best. War is messy. Israel regrets that the families that have moved South must now face bombing again. This is war. Children are blinded. People lose limbs.
Do you remember what they did to Israel? If not them, then people like them — so what would you have Israel do? Not avenge? Not salvage pride? Not save the nation’s face, repair the iron dome, rebuild the walls? Good fences make good neighbours. Security is paramount, war is messy. Israel has a right to defend itself.
People must be moved out of countries, territories must be wiped clean. Or how will Israel ever be safe? If ‘home’ and ‘family’ are rooting them to the land, then Israel must uproot. It must expunge.
Israel has a right to bomb the archives, to burn the records, to raise flags and promise to build settlements. Israel has a right to defend its settlements. Israel has a right to defend its soldiers. To cast lead. To mow the lawn. To drain the swamp. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and the most moral army in the world and if it has to cleanse the land to make a point then we all have a duty to support it.
We must stand with Israel. Stand, if necessary, on the necks of civilians. Stand in operating theatres liberated from electricity and anaesthetic. Stand in schools made free of dangerous teaching and dangerous children. Stand in refugee camps and proclaim that from the river to the sea, and beyond the Jordan, Israel has the right to defend itself.
Doesn’t Israel have the right? We have the right. Why not them? Like US soldiers in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Vietnam, Israel must defend itself. Like British soldiers in India, Russians in Crimea, Austrians in Poland, our troops must work their sacred duty to defend against the evil of insurgency, instability and intifada. So must Israel. Whatever the cost. We must accept the cost. War is messy. Israel has a right.
And it’s very sad, of course. Nobody wants the innocent to die. But who is innocent? Which one of us without sin? People in glass houses, and, anyway, war is messy. They started it. Israel has a right.
To defend itself. War is messy. You want to make an omelette, you have to kill and kill and kill. This is the sad truth. Being a civilian is no excuse.
Every woman and child there knows and shelters men. And we know about men, don’t we? Israel, feminist and enlightened, is fighting against men, violent men, extremist men, Muslims, Palestinian men. And we can pretend we don’t, but we all know what that means. Don’t be naïve. They are violent, barbarous, brutal, human animals, who hate Israel. For existing. For being Jewish. For being prosperous. For enjoying the freedom brought by power and powerful friends. These are the only reasons.
Israel has a right to defend itself against mindless hate. Israel must bomb that hate out of existence. Every heart that stops is one less heart the harbours hate for Israel. This is how we make ourselves safe.
Israel has the right to level Gaza and remove its people, by any means necessary. Why is that so hard to understand? Why do you insist on talking about their dead? Why do you insist on talking? Why do you look so tired?
Israel has a right to defend itself.
History
A long time ago, on the Beer Christianity podcast, we spoke to Israeli Historian, Ilan Pappe. It’s Episode 44, if you want to find it on your preferred podcast platform.
It may be helpful in case you missed the ironic and satirical prophetic intent behind the main body of this newsletter. For dispelling doubt: end Israeli Apartheid, end the Occupation, ceasefire now and free Palestine.
We talk about a lot of other stuff than Israel-Palestine, btw. Most recently: how lawyers can fight injustice and how evangelicalism needs liberating from patriarchy. Soon: understanding the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The end bit
Beer Christianity is an occasionally amusing, boozy, sweary Leftist Christian podcast. Find us at beerchristianty.co.uk
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The end end bit.
I am exhausted. A lot of us are. We feel like we are preaching into the wind, trying to make what difference we can in the face of hostile governments, cynical media and indifferent churches. But Palestinians are still being rounded up and detained, still (again) being killed by Israel. The Occupation rolls on, over people and land. We are tired, but the people of Gaza are still suffering. Our collective ADHD must not be weaponised against them. Not that as well. Please keep speaking out, posting on social, phoning and writing to your representatives, holding to boycotts, educating yourself and others, caring. Praying for justice, peace and freedom in the Holy Land. Free Palestine. Thanks for reading. God bless you.
This is so well written - almost too well-written - it took me a long time to realise it was ironic!