For your perusal, my latest INTO THE FRAY column:
INTO THE FRAY: Swastikas over Gaza!
(Kindly consider “liking”, sharing, tweeting – please use hash-tag #IntoFray)
Nothing could expose the true intent of the Judeocidal riots on Gaza border more than the Nazi-style swastikas on incendiary kites flown into Israel to set Jewish property (& if possible, Jewish people) ablaze.
It appears this week on the following sites (in alphabetical order):
ISRAELI FRONTLINE: http://www.israelifrontline.com/2018/05/into-the-fray-swastikas-over-gaza.html
ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/22178
ISRAPUNDIT: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/opinion/israel-defend-gaza-border.html?emc=ed
ISRAEL RISING: https://www.israelrising.com/swastikas-over-gaza/
JERUSALEM HERALD: https://www.jerusalem-herald.com/single-post/2018/05/17/INTO-THE-FRAY-Swastikas-Over-Gaza
JEWISH PRESS: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/into-the-fray-martin-sherman/into-the-fray-swastikas-over-gaza/2018/05/25/
JNS: https://www.jns.org/opinion/swastikas-over-gaza/
JEWS DOWN UNDER: https://jewsdownunder.com/2018/05/18/into-the-fray-swastikas-over-gaza/
MEDIUM: https://medium.com/@martinsherman/into-the-fray-swastikas-over-gaza-c02c2a5eb0ea
UNITED WITH ISRAEL: https://unitedwithisrael.org/swastikas-over-gaza-what-does-that-say-about-the-border-protests/
Several short excerpts:
Hamas supporters in Gaza held the world’s first peaceful protest with hand grenades, pipe bombs, cleavers and guns. Ten explosive devices were peacefully detonated. There were outbursts of peaceful gunfire and over a dozen kites carrying firebombs were sent into Israel where they started 23 peaceful fires… – Daniel Greenfield, Frontpage Mag, May 15, 2018.
“We will tear down the border and we will tear out their hearts from their bodies.” Yahya Sinwar, Head of Hamas, clarifying the peaceful intent of the rioters on the Gaza border, April 6, 2018.
Nothing could expose the true intent of the Judeocidal riots on the border with Gaza more than the Nazi-style swastikas, brazenly emblazoned on many of the dozens of incendiary kites flown into Israel with the purposeful intent of setting Jewish property—and if possible, Jewish people—ablaze.
Yet, despite the blatantly violent nature of the mob activity on, and around, the border, and the bloodcurdling exhortations of the Gazan leadership to butcher Jews, Israel is being excoriated in international forums for allegedly using uncalled for lethal force to prevent its borders being breached by a manifestly homicidal horde.
Crucible, not victim
…Two flimsy excuses are being bandied about in the mainstream media for the ongoing displays of hostility at the Gaza border…Both portray the inhabitants of Gaza as victims – either (a) as victims of their leadership and/or (b) as victims of Israel’s repressive blockade of the hapless enclave…With regard to the former, the Gazans are not the blameless victims of their leadership…Quite the opposite! They are the very crucible in which that leadership was formed, and from which it emerged.
Confounding cause with consequence
…it is demonstrably and indisputably clear that the imposition of the quarantine on Gaza is the consequence—not the cause—of Arab enmity towards Israel…It is the result of, not the reason for, the Judeophobic incitement and the Judeocidal aggression that have become the hallmark of Gaza ever since Israel unilaterally evacuated the enclave, well over a decade ago—and recently so irrefutably illustrated by the swastikas flying over the enflamed mob, chanting slogans calling for the slaughter of the Jews and destruction of their state.
Incipient anti-Semitism: Expecting Jews to die meekly
… since the security quarantine was instituted to protect Jews from Arabs who sought to kill them, the demands to have it removed, or made less thorough in discharging that function, are inherently anti-Semitic. For the unavoidable significance of these demands is to undermine the ability of the Jews to defend themselves against those who would eagerly slaughter them—and as such, are in effect, a call for Jews to die meekly, or, at least, not to overly inconvenience their would-be murderers…
Current humanitarian aid perpetuates the conflict
The socio-economic plight is neither the result of scarcity of cash nor of any lack of largesse on the part of Israel. To the contrary, the Gazans have enjoyed a plethora of both. Both have been purposely misused…Gaza has descended to its current depths not because of a dearth of dollars, or a deficit of Israeli good-will—but because of the brutal and dysfunctional nature of its society. Greater funding and more Israeli leniency will not remedy that malaise. To the contrary, they will only exacerbate it.
“…a traumatic scar on collective Arab memory…
In October 2000, close on two decades ago, just after the outbreak of what has become known as the “Second Intifada”, I wrote a (Hebrew) opinion column, in which I warned: “the current outbreak of violence will not end without the use of massive military might that will leave a traumatic scar on the collective national memory of the Arabs”…Today, almost two decades later, Israel is suffering the result of its unexplained—and seemingly inexplicable—reticence to use its overwhelming military dominance to achieve strategic victory over its far weaker adversaries—and lasting security for its own population.
Decades of dereliction of diplomatic duty
But beyond the gravely detrimental operational implications involved in letting the violence at fence drag on, the implications in the diplomatic field are even more disturbing…For as we have seen in the past, even if Israel does enjoy sympathy at the start of some violent encounter (like the 2006 offensive against Hezbollah), this is quickly eroded away as time draws on…prolonged clashes allow Israel’s detractors to mobilize, concoct anti-Israel fabrications, garner support for fallacious accusations of “disproportionate” use of force and portray its adversaries as the blameless victims of the “Zionist ogre”.
General context, not event–specific endeavor
…the principal focus of Israel’s diplomatic effort must not be on trying to explain/justify ex-post specific events—after they have taken place. Rather it must endeavor to redefine, ex-ante, the general context in which those specific events are perceived and interpreted…This distinction is crucial—for the same event can be interpreted in very different ways depending on the context in which they are seen. [Thus]if Israel is persuasively portrayed as a lone democracy, valiantly striving to maintain western values in a surrounding sea of tyranny and theocracy, its actions are far more likely to win approval than if it allows itself to be presented as a cruel and avaricious behemoth, trampling the rights of the deprived indigenous natives
