Oy. Some young men from my church, nephews of some of our Spanish congregation leaders, were in an auto accident this morning. One is seriously injured but has regained consciousness, another was arrested but will be released, and I guess the third was wearing his seat belt.
Good morning, In some respects, I find this morning's letter from David to be the most important. Here it is.
Dear everyone,
We had our first siren at 5:00 p.m. yesterday. We went into our secure room, heard the booms of the Iron Dome intercepting the rockets, stayed in the secure room for about another 4 minutes and then came out. Benjamin has an app that notifies him of rocket attacks on Petach Tikva and Jerusalem. Our arrangement with him is that, whenever we get a siren, we notify him that we are alright. Can you imagine that we are so accustomed to this that we did not think it necessary to notify him? Of course, he complained and we will try to do better next time. But what a weird world to live in. Meanwhile, we had two or three more sirens during the night.
Several of you have asked important questions and I think it might help for me to share the answers, as I see the situation.
Why are the death and wounded statistics rising so rapidly? I think that there are several answers. First, more bodies and body parts are being found every day. Second, they are identifying bodies and body remains and also taking testimony from witnesses about the killed and the kidnapped. This is a long and slow process, made even slower because the bodies are booby-trapped and have to be handled very carefully. But the process does advance. Finally, there is a growing number of the wounded who have died. That is why the number grows so rapidly. The number of soldiers who died in liberating the south is, I think, quite small.
Why does no one want to take in Palestinian refugees? First, to the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as naturalization anywhere in the Arab world. It is a very tribal society and all foreigners are, by definition, not part of the tribe. So, as I understand it, Egyptians can’t move to Iraq and become Iraqis, etc.
More important, the Palestinians have proven to be a destructive force wherever they have settled. A very large group of “Palestinian refugees” moved into Lebanon decades ago, armed themselves, attacked Israel, and provoked an armed intervention by Israel which resulted in quite some destruction. The Lebanese still do not have control of these “refugee camps.” Note that, decades later, these Palestinians, who live in apartment buildings in these “refugee camps,” still consider themselves as refugees and receive international payments from deluded Europeans and American. (There was no multi-generational refugee problem in Europe after the war or in Cambodia or elsewhere.)
The same is true in Jordan where the Jordanians had to massacre a large number of Palestinians to make it clear to them to stop violent behavior. I think the Palestinians now outnumber the Jordanians there.
Palestinians have also been an anarchistic force in Egypt. And in Turkey. They’ve been expelled even from Kuwait, if my memory serves me correctly.
The same is true in Gaza which has been for many years, until later this week, a self-governing Palestinian entity. They declared themselves as permanent refugees, with violent intentions, and have succeeded in doing nothing but causing trouble and, if among the elite, making themselves rich. Beirut used to be known as the Riviera of the East. So, think of the strip of coastline from Beirut to Gaza as a potential East Mediterranean Riviera. Gaza could have been that, but it does require peace and a constructive attitude toward coexistence, which the Palestinians have never had.
They did this on the West Bank, too. Palestinians have been largely self-governing since 1967 and could have been an independent state, if they had been willing to declare themselves citizens of Palestine and good neighbors.
This is why neither Israel nor Egypt, nor anyone else, wants to take over Gaza or give refuge to Palestinians. Indeed, it is why Israel withdrew from Gaza and it is why, up ‘til now, Israel did not substantially hurt Gaza. Ripping limbs off live babies is crossing a line. So are the other horrible things they did, filming them and putting them up on social media as an act of bragging. As PM Ehud Barak, a strong liberal, once said, “You will not outcrazy us out of this neighborhood.”
Sorry to be so hard-hearted about this but history is what it is. Golda Meir, the late PM of Israel, once said, “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
Oy. Some young men from my church, nephews of some of our Spanish congregation leaders, were in an auto accident this morning. One is seriously injured but has regained consciousness, another was arrested but will be released, and I guess the third was wearing his seat belt.
Good morning, In some respects, I find this morning's letter from David to be the most important. Here it is.
Dear everyone,
We had our first siren at 5:00 p.m. yesterday. We went into our secure room, heard the booms of the Iron Dome intercepting the rockets, stayed in the secure room for about another 4 minutes and then came out. Benjamin has an app that notifies him of rocket attacks on Petach Tikva and Jerusalem. Our arrangement with him is that, whenever we get a siren, we notify him that we are alright. Can you imagine that we are so accustomed to this that we did not think it necessary to notify him? Of course, he complained and we will try to do better next time. But what a weird world to live in. Meanwhile, we had two or three more sirens during the night.
Several of you have asked important questions and I think it might help for me to share the answers, as I see the situation.
Why are the death and wounded statistics rising so rapidly? I think that there are several answers. First, more bodies and body parts are being found every day. Second, they are identifying bodies and body remains and also taking testimony from witnesses about the killed and the kidnapped. This is a long and slow process, made even slower because the bodies are booby-trapped and have to be handled very carefully. But the process does advance. Finally, there is a growing number of the wounded who have died. That is why the number grows so rapidly. The number of soldiers who died in liberating the south is, I think, quite small.
Why does no one want to take in Palestinian refugees? First, to the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as naturalization anywhere in the Arab world. It is a very tribal society and all foreigners are, by definition, not part of the tribe. So, as I understand it, Egyptians can’t move to Iraq and become Iraqis, etc.
More important, the Palestinians have proven to be a destructive force wherever they have settled. A very large group of “Palestinian refugees” moved into Lebanon decades ago, armed themselves, attacked Israel, and provoked an armed intervention by Israel which resulted in quite some destruction. The Lebanese still do not have control of these “refugee camps.” Note that, decades later, these Palestinians, who live in apartment buildings in these “refugee camps,” still consider themselves as refugees and receive international payments from deluded Europeans and American. (There was no multi-generational refugee problem in Europe after the war or in Cambodia or elsewhere.)
The same is true in Jordan where the Jordanians had to massacre a large number of Palestinians to make it clear to them to stop violent behavior. I think the Palestinians now outnumber the Jordanians there.
Palestinians have also been an anarchistic force in Egypt. And in Turkey. They’ve been expelled even from Kuwait, if my memory serves me correctly.
The same is true in Gaza which has been for many years, until later this week, a self-governing Palestinian entity. They declared themselves as permanent refugees, with violent intentions, and have succeeded in doing nothing but causing trouble and, if among the elite, making themselves rich. Beirut used to be known as the Riviera of the East. So, think of the strip of coastline from Beirut to Gaza as a potential East Mediterranean Riviera. Gaza could have been that, but it does require peace and a constructive attitude toward coexistence, which the Palestinians have never had.
They did this on the West Bank, too. Palestinians have been largely self-governing since 1967 and could have been an independent state, if they had been willing to declare themselves citizens of Palestine and good neighbors.
This is why neither Israel nor Egypt, nor anyone else, wants to take over Gaza or give refuge to Palestinians. Indeed, it is why Israel withdrew from Gaza and it is why, up ‘til now, Israel did not substantially hurt Gaza. Ripping limbs off live babies is crossing a line. So are the other horrible things they did, filming them and putting them up on social media as an act of bragging. As PM Ehud Barak, a strong liberal, once said, “You will not outcrazy us out of this neighborhood.”
Sorry to be so hard-hearted about this but history is what it is. Golda Meir, the late PM of Israel, once said, “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
Peace and blessing,
David