War is Terrible

Monday 2/26/2024

May this inquiry into my personal ethics strengthen my connection with truth, humanity, and justice. 

The natural extension of my last piece of writing is to turn the challenging questions onto myself. 

I ask; do I, as an Israeli, feel sympathy for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza?

My immediate answer is definitely. From the beginning of the war, I was well aware of the destruction that awaited Gaza. And while I personally support the war effort, it is also heartbreaking. Ultimately, from the beginning of the war, I blame the terrorist organization Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. I blame all who support and empower them, for Gaza’s destruction.

Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad clearly sees Palestinians as human shields. This is an evident, essential, and obvious part of their gorilla warfare strategy. In a disgusting display of extreme barbarity, their civilians are used to devastating ends. And the wild truth is that many if not most of the Palestinian people are completely ok with this.

It’s a part of their ideological grip of Islamic Jihad terrorism, that they believe that they will be rewarded in the afterlife for their sacrifice. This is what ideologically ties them with Hezbollah, the Yemen Houthis, and ultimately what makes them the perfect pawns for Iran’s master plan of taking over the Middle East.

The Israeli people are being dragged into a war with the most barbaric, and ideological network of Islamic terrorists. I can’t emphasize their manipulative strategy enough. On October 7, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad attacked Israel with the most devastating and barbaric terrorist attack, murdering, mutilating, raping, and kidnapping innocent Israeli people. They know that the only way that Israel can respond is through military attack.

Many of the civilians in Gaza, who didn’t actively participate in the October 7 masacre, celebrated it. It was a widely celebrated event throughout the Arab world, and shockingly throughout the whole world. In Gaza, children and other citizens support terrorists, not only as shields, but also through general support. They celebrate terrorists as martyrs. It’s very important to understand how embedded this terrorist organization and ideology is in the Palestinian world.

These terrorist organizations are hiding behind their civilians, and have the hostages with them in their underground tunnels. Instead of creating societal infrastructure, they have used international aid to create an endless network of terrorist tunnels that run underneath Gaza for miles.  These tunnels were specifically designed for an attack like this. The only way that Israel can get to them is by going through the massively populated areas in Gaza, thereby going through the civilians.

This is how Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad uses its own civilians as human shields. They also will kill any Palestinian under their control that acts out of line with their authority. They go so far as to kill citizens who try to take humanitarian aid for themselves. Hamas literally hides and attacks from within humanitarian aid zones, to make it harder for the IDF to avoid putting the citizens at risk.

This also makes it nearly impossible to make humanitarian aid zones, which further catalysts criticism from the West. It’s insane how not only does the West not really see their strategy, but Palestinians themselves deny this fact. Even though the terrorist organizations literally make it as obvious as possible. The ‘international community’ still is blind to it, unable to see the truth behind the Palestinians suffering.

After and during the first Independence war (because some are calling this the second one), there was a huge wave of Palestinians that fled. They took refuge in other Arab countries, but were never given citizenship. This was a tactic to put them in a position of being a perpetuating refugee, and their coming generations to be designated as refugees too. This contributes to the Palestinian national identity being infused with the return to the land, and Israel's destruction. This sentiment is perpetuated by not being accepted into the neighboring countries.

Palestinian people don't want to risk not being able to get back to living in Gaza once the war is over. All of this gives context to why there are no Arab nations who are willing to accept Gaza's civilians as refugees. Granted, I'm sure Egypt would also prefer to not be dealing with Hamas internally.

The UNRWA, created by the UN to perpetually treat the refugee crisis of the Palestinians, directly supports and is involved with Hamas terrorism. There were even terrorists on October 7 who are also in UNRWA, using UNRWA equipment for their massacre. Again, UNRWA workers at large celebrated the massacre on October 7. The intelligence headquarters of Hamas was found literally in the basement of the UNRWA headquarters.

This is the nature of Palestinian's international support, which is actually just a scheme to support the ruling terrorist organization. In the internationally supported infrastructure, like schools and hospitals, the IDF is finding terrorist cells and entrances to terrorist tunnels. Their only international news is Al-Jazeera, which also has reporters working for them with a second job as a terrorist in Hamas. Both Hamas, and Al Jazeera share funding support from the same regime, their friends in Qatar. This is all of course, quite terrible conditions to live within.

So yes, I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people that are suffering. And I feel angry that the worst people on this planet have forced us into this position. I feel angry that my friends are risking their lives, and that I have a friend who has died in this war. I feel sad that our hostages are in unimaginable conditions.

Further, I feel angry at how effective these terrorist’s propaganda is at being an organized, and systemic manipulation of Western society. The fact that they have infiltrated all social institutions, manipulating western ideals of freedom and liberty against themselves, is absolutely insane.

These terrorist organizations know very well what they are doing to us. They are very aware of how much we hate war and killing. They know how much we value life, and they are completely aware of how much the Jewish people have suffered. This is a part of their terrorism.

 They make us question our own ethics and morality, while having other nations doubt it. Their manipulation has captivated way too many people with this tactic. All the while, Israel’s ethics are strengthened because of it. When we reflect on our personal ethics it only strengthens us, making us even more aware of ourselves. This challenges us to be the most ethical army we can be. Israel’s self criticism is one of our strongest traits.

This piece of writing intends to share a little of how I feel about the war, particularly focusing on the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza. It is a question that a lot of people in the diaspora are wanting to know about Israelis' experience currently. I definitely do not speak for everyone, and I think that there is even more to the question than what I am saying in this particular piece of writing.

Diasporic media, to varying degrees, really heavily criticizes Israel in a way that I do not think is justifiable, ethical or valid. I think that the intention of this piece of writing is to consolidate some of my experience in a tangible form that can be engaged with contemplatively.

I think there is an intense contemplation of ethics with what is happening. Currently our strategy may be putting Israeli people and soldiers at risk, with the intention of making it safer for Gaza's citizens. This could be because of the influence of the West, and the need to maintain our ally relationships. It's also definitely out of our own value for human welfare, and ethics. Also, they are literally hiding inside miles of tunnel systems that can't be bombed from the air. It's a war, and a very messy one at that.

I hold a complex range of emotions evoked from this war, and from the situation at hand. Through my writing I have been exploring my ability to articulate this wide range of emotions, and contextualize them. I think that I am actively contradicting an essential cause of frustration while doing this. The frustration comes from the inability for many people to hold a complex range of emotional intelligence; instead jumping to prepackaged responses.

I think that by writing I am intending to articulate all of the different feelings, creating clarity to their origins, and how they relate with one another. My intention by sharing it is so that they can be understood and reflected on. I’m certain that my thoughts regarding geopolitics come from people much smarter than me. At the end of the day, I just have a pen and a paper and I’m writing down thoughts and feelings.

I do feel sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people. And I am absolutely not naive. We can’t have a ceasefire. These are our priorities; to get the hostages home, to eliminate the threat of terrorism on our borders, to not die, and to not target innocent civilians.

Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad massacred Israel on October 7 and took our people as hostages. They are hiding behind densely populated urban spaces and in their tunnel system deep under Gaza.  Hezbollah is firing Russian and Iranian rockets at the North, a few kilometers away from the border. Yemen’s Houthis are firing Iranian ballistic missiles at Israel’s South, the global trade system, and at US and UK militaries.

Iran has an ongoing nuclear development program, a deep ideological hatred of Israel and Western society, and are supporting the proxy terrorist organizations mentioned above. They intend on completely taking over and reforming the Middle East into an Islamic empire. All the while, Western society is increasingly manipulated by their terrorist propaganda. And of course, there is Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine and collaboration with the Arab world.

I think having a wide range of emotions and responses to what is currently happening is completely valid.