Are You Sitting Down? There's Trouble in the Middle East.

An old friend of mine William Hearst sent me an email today asking if I'd read over a short piece he wrote. Bill is pretty outspoken when it comes what's happening in the middle east, especially when it comes to the Palestinians/Hamas/Arabs scrapping with Israel. Fortunately, such occurrences are rare. Only once every couple months for the last 66 years.

I asked Bill what he was planning on doing with his op-ed piece and he said he didn't have any plans, just felt like writing. I told him I'd toss it up here on my blog. So without further adieu:

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New Amsterdam

The fighting continued in the Gaza Strip after a 90 minute ceasefire that was supposed to last 72 hours.  Educated people who have a very sparing knowledge of history know that this conflict didn't start in 2014, or even 1014. It is a fight that has raged for as long as there has been the written word.  

1948, 1967, 1973, 1982, 2009, 2012, 2014… This has become a part of the Israeli existence.  Why should the Jews of Israel have to accept this as a way of life?  And furthermore, why does the world seem to think it has the moral authority to tell Israel what to do in order to make sure their citizens are safe from the Arabs?  The actual answer is, is that no country in the world is so above reproach that it should ever say a word about Israel and its handling of the Arab issue in the West bank and Gaza Strip - least of all the United States.  Yet day after day during this current conflict, one needn't look far to see some daft Hollywood type, the BBC, New York Times, et al, making some bombastic statement about the way in which Israel is handling a very dangerous situation.  

The question is ubiquitous, but it is a very valid one: what would any country do if they were faced with the same situation as Israel?  What would any person do that was charged with protecting someone, much less a nation of people?   Anyone that answers the previous question honestly would agree with what Israel is doing and the tactics that they are employing.  Israel does not want to kill Arab youths.  Israel does not want to blow up UN schools in the Gaza Strip.  Israel does not want to kill Arab women.  Israel does not want to kill Arab men.  Women do not want to have their breasts removed when they get cancer, however in order to get rid of the cancer you must attack it at the source.  You don’t cut off the shoulder to solve a problem that exists in the knee.  

Hamas knows that it will garner a great deal of support in the uneducated and anti-west world every time a rocket hits a school or a hospital in Gaza.  Which is precisely why they use those venues to launch their attacks and hide their munitions.  The strategy is two-fold; it causes Israel a dilemma because Israel does not want to launch rockets at a school or hospital because it will very likely cause innocent people to be killed.  It is also a way for Hamas to portray the Jews as a mongrel race that has no value for human life.  How could a country launch an attack on a school?!  

“New Amsterdam it’s become much too much.”  The institutional anti-Semitism that is rotten in the Gaza Strip cannot be untaught.  After all the conflicts between the Jews and Arabs how can anyone with a grain of sense think that a two state solution is viable?  The only way it would work is if the Jews remained in Israel and the Arab state was located in Fiji.  The Arabs have proved time and again that they cannot stomach peace with the Jews.  The world needs to grow up fast.  Forcing interaction between people that don’t like each other is a recipe for disaster.  Should people respect one another for their differences? Absolutely.  Should anyone be forced to live right next to someone who they find to be completely unfit? No.  At the end of the day the world needs to let Israel and the Arabs figure this out themselves.

- William Hearst

Robert Sez: As a non-Jewish boring white American, I can't see for the life of me why the Jews want to stay in Israel. I say pack up all six million and send them over here to the western hemisphere. Maybe Mexico could donate a few thousand acres they aren't using and Israel 2.0 could be up and running in no time.

OK, as I wrote that I couldn't help remember another time when somebody had the bright idea to move all the Jews to a different place, but let's not get into that. My bad.

Sadly, I know deep down even if every last Jew packed up and moved to the North Pole, it wouldn't matter much. Within a year, an extreme sect of radical Muslim Eskimos would load up polar bears with C4 and send them into town because the evil Zionists were living on top of sacred ice or something.

It's pretty easy to paint Israel the bad guy in the latest round of fighting. After all, they have the modern military and the citizens of Gaza are essentially unarmed. Civilians are being killed and injured by the hundreds. But as Bill pointed out much more eloquently than I'm attempting to do, The Israeli army didn't wake up one morning and decide to roll armor through the strip and start gunning kids down. Kick the hornet nest and there is a good chance you'll get stung.

The real problem in my opinion is too many people with radically different values and beliefs crammed into a tight space the size of Six Flags. Something has to give. Is there an easy answer? I'm not sure but I have sneaking suspicion my great grandson will be writing about this very subject long after my consciousness has been uploaded into the cloud.

Seriously, it's 2014. When is that part of the world going to get it's shit together and move on? Why can't people just do their thing and leave everybody else alone? Yes, I know I'm oversimplifying and me giving that advice to a parent after an Israeli rocket just took out their school is ridiculous. But really, the root cause of that rocket is the Muslims hate the Jews and the Sunnis hate the Shias and Mahdavi hate the Christians and pretty much everybody hates America.

It's getting so bad I almost pray to my non-controversial-please-don't-get-offended God that aliens show up and try to enslave us. At least that would bind us together as the human race and we'd all have a common enemy for once. Until that day comes, keep your damn polar bear off my lawn.