Not by power, not by might

Violence only begats more violence

Please view the attached video before proceeding with reading this article.

Screen shots from the video The Day of a Show of Strength

I have recently been accused of being supportive of genocide because I made the statement that the residents in Gaza suffering the retaliatory attacks of the IDF need better leadership. I based this conclusion on the facts of the history of the results of the decisions of the Palestinian Arabs to use violence as a means of addressing their grievances with the Jewish government, from 1948 until October 7, 2023. Each time they have lost, and the civilian population suffered as a consequence, resulting also in the continual reduction in the amount of land they occupy.

Mahmoud Abbas stated in 2011 that the decision to not accept UN resolution 181 was a tragic mistake on the part of the Palestinian Arab leadership, one he has been trying to correct. In the attached video of the events of April 22, 1986, the forces of the IDF are shown arrayed around the Hebrew Israelite community in Dimona, Israel, where hundreds of men, women and children dressed in white were assembled to begin a march to Jerusalem in protest of the arrests of 46 members of the community who had been working at a fruit packing factory in Rehovot.

The soldiers shown in the video are a mere fraction of the forces that had assembled to oppose the planned march, with snipers present on the roof of the school next to the dwellings of the Israelites and even a tank having been brought into the city. No one amongst the gathered Israelites was armed.

The stage was set for a confrontation, however, when the leader, Rabbi Ben Ammi, came out and walked towards the front of the procession to begin the march, he instead veered to his right and went into the central area of the community, where he stood on top of one of the bomb shelters. From there he proclaimed that he had seen the violence in the eyes of the assembled soldiers and understood that they had come that day to shed innocent blood, even though we had not lifted our hand in violence against anyone in the country. He stated that we would not give them that satisfaction, but we would fast and pray to the God of our fathers and we would wait; we are not afraid, he said, and if the trumpet sounds and we are told to march, we will march, but until then, we will wait.

After 3 days representatives of the government came to sit with him and asked how to resolve the situation. This was the result of the decision of a leader who understood the price his people would pay if they undertook to carry out the plan he had presented to them as the means to protest the situation of our people.

This young woman was a victim of the October 7 attack on one of the hardest hit kibbutzim. In the video she blames the government - especially the Prime Minister- for what happened to her and those she loves. She says this attack by those who profess to hate Israelis is not new, just worse than in the past, the most hurtful part is that she feels the government that was supposed to protect them abandoned them. She faulted her leaders for her personal suffering and that of the others who lived in the area near the border with Gaza.

From The Times of Israel, December 31, 2023

In this article, the writer states that there is a need to assess what went wrong that led to the tragedy of the October 7 attacks now rather than after the emotional surge in its aftermath has waned and grown cold. She points, again, to leadership, i.e. those who make the decisions that affect all of us as the ones who have to answer the hard questions, just as the Prime Minister finds himself the target of the families of the hostages; this is the burden of leadership.

Hamas was democratically elected as the leaders of the people of Gaza; they legally represent the voice of the residents of the strip. October 7 was not the first time they have attacked Israel: I was in Beersheva in 2014 when the siren sounded, and my wife and I had to flee the movie theater with all the other patrons as the missiles were falling. The IDF went into Gaza then and did extensive damage, causing Hamas to seek a ceasefire, which was implemented at the time. The strip was heavily damaged and over the course of the next 9 years rebuilt.

But Hamas also rebuilt and increased its military capacity, so that October 7 marked a new level of military expertise for them, and it showed in the efficiency of their actions. They achieved I am sure more than they anticipated that day, but they also had to know that the price would be in proportion to the success.

Creator: Hassan Eslaiah - Gaza 2023

Creator: STRINGER - Gaza 2023

There were 73 Israeli casualties in 2014 as opposed to 2,251 Gazans. This is a ratio of 30.8:1. In 2023, 1,200 Israelis were reportedly killed during the October 7 attack, at the same ratio as 2014 that comes to 37,000 expected Gazan deaths. Currently it is being reported by the Gazan health officials that around 21,000 have died.

The leaders of Hamas have access to the same information I used, so if they were smart enough to figure out how to attack Israel so efficiently, then they also anticipated the possible level of response; the blood of the tragic people of Gaza is on their hands.

As I said, the people of Gaza need better leaders…

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