Read A Multi Colored Coat!
Political and Policy Op-Eds
While swimming in some of the vileness that counts as debate these days, I came across a video arguing that Israelis were responsible for the massacre of Oct. 7. The case rested on Israeli press reports indicating that helicopters may have killed concertgoers while Israeli soldiers also shelled some homes in the Gaza envelope area.
Normally, when I attend a shiva I ask one question: “What one thing, one characteristic, one message would you like to share from the life of the deceased?”
I can’t ask that question at these events. These young men and women didn’t have a chance to live a life. For the most part, they were just starting to live a life.
Around the world, protestors are chanting for the end of the Israeli mission in Gaza and for a ‘Free Palestine.’ It is important to ask what a ‘Free Palestine’ would look like. Would it lead to the chaos or to a Libya so dysfunctional that heavy rains brought down a dam that hadn’t been maintained for 20 years (killing 20,000 people only a few months ago – not that anybody cared)? Would it lead to dictatorship? Or would it lead to freedom?
As I sit at my desk, less than 40 miles from Gaza, I cannot help but see that the war unfolding around me is not a war between Israel and Palestine- it is a war between civilization and barbarism
The experience of a monoculture is never stronger than during an existential war. It can not be allowed to take hold.
If we don’t teach Hamas that their hostage-taking doesn’t pay, it will only get worse.
