The Other Side

I am not a fan of the current government of Israel. I think they have objectified and dehumanized their neighbors and engaged in disproportionate retaliation in both Gaza and Lebanon. Firing at Medical units responding to Israeli bombing in Lebanon is plainly obscene. The government's obeisance to the far right evangelical settler movement that has terrorized Palestinian inhabitants has destroyed any real hope for peace. Their use and manipulation of Trump against Iran has caused a huge fracture towards Israel in the global Jewish community.

Still, when I hear about the pain of Israeli response without mention of the unprovoked attacks of October 7 it makes me both angry and nauseous. A summary of October 7 from Wikipedia:

The October 7 attacks were a series of coordinated armed incursions from the blockaded Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel, carried out by Hamas and several other Palestinian militant groups in 2023, during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. The attacks, which began the ongoing Gaza war, were the first large-scale invasion of Israeli territory since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In response, Israel launched a large-scale military operation in Gaza.

The attacks began with a barrage of at least 4,300 rockets launched into Israel and vehicle-transported and powered paraglider incursions into Israel. Hamas militants breached the Gaza–Israel barrier, attacking military bases and massacring civilians in 21 communities, including Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, Netiv Haasara, and Alumim. According to an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) report that revised the estimate on the number of attackers, 6,000 Gazans breached the border in 119 locations into Israel, including 3,800 from the elite Nukhba forces and 2,200 civilians and other militants. Additionally, the IDF report estimated 1,000 Gazans fired rockets from the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of participants on Hamas's side to 7,000.

In total, 1,195 people were killed by the attacks:at least 828 civilians including 36 children and 71 foreign nationals and at least 367 members of the security forces. 364 civilians were killed while they were attending the Nova music festival and many more wounded. At least 14 Israeli civilians were killed by the IDF's use of the Hannibal Directive. About 250 Israeli and non-Israeli civilians and soldiers were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip. Dozens of cases of rape and sexual assault reportedly occurred, but Hamas officials denied the involvement of their fighters.

The militants killed unarmed kids at a rock concert, babies and the elderly among others. Tapes exist of militants bragging to their families about killing jews. They raped and sexually assaulted. Israel responded in a horrid fashion, killing many innocent people in the most unhygienic way, but their response did not occur in a vacuum.

I have mentioned before that my father was born in Palestine, his father is buried there. I have family all over the country, with a large chunk less than twenty miles from the massacre site, at Revivim.

I have lived in Israel during two periods of conflict, both in 1976 and practically the entirety of Desert Storm, arriving three days after the start of the war, to fulfill a promise to my late brother. People like to talk about war who have never lived through it. 

I have.

I lived less than three miles from the Lebanese border, at Gesher Haziv. North of Nahariya. We would have to grade the earth around the kibbutz at night, so that the army could find terrorists who slipped through during the night, which happened on occasion. We had three tanks permanently on the kibbutz, pointed towards Lebanon, near the factory.

Militants would aim for Nahariya to our south and hit our communal farm. The kibbutzniks would plant trees in the craters.

Not long after I arrived there, I had a katyusha rocket fragment come through the wall of the small room in which I lived. I made the mistake of touching the shrapnel, which was red hot, and burned my hand. My roommate was a big burly guy from Australia. He was on the next plane out of the country. 

I stayed. Many nights of rockets and machine gun fire in the air.

Later I came back for Desert Storm. As I have recounted before, I was in a scud missile attack within one hour of landing in Tel Aviv, on a bus of soldiers making their way to the north. I was thankfully unharmed, but went through a multitude of missile attacks and slept in a sealed room and bomb shelter for six weeks. 

Still have the decorated box for my oxygen mask and atropine injection kit, which was handed to me when I got off the plane.

I looked up Gesher Haziv the other day. Someone else there took a rocket in their home, much like I had fifty years ago.

My old home is now the newfound de facto northern border.

GESHER HAZIV – This Western Galilee kibbutz, traditionally a popular stop for visitors headed to destinations farther north, is now the final stop immediately before the evacuated zone and sits on the very edge of what’s become Israel’s de facto northern border.

Since October 8, when Hezbollah began attacking Israel, with the terror group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there, the Israeli government has evacuated almost the entire civilian population from the area close to the border with Lebanon, about 61,000 people. The kibbutz is about 5.1 kilometers (3.1 miles) from the northern border, and only 100 meters (.06 miles) south of the evacuation zone.

The people of Gesher Haziv and Revivim have a right to live in peace as well. Please don't mention the evil Israelis without considering what it is like to live with their neighbors, people who murder young kids at a rave and also bomb indiscriminately and are taught that their ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel practically from the cradle.

The middle east is a great big clusterfuck and it is extremely difficult to find any semblance of virtue anywhere. Blood is on all hands there. How would you respond to violence if you lived there?