Wednesday, July 12, 2006

The Day I Lost Perspective

You know how I'm all "war is bad" and "every human life counts" and "any death of another person makes me sad" all the time? Well that's over.

Israel kills 23 in Gaza, targets Hamas commanders

Normally I'd be anxious about this, because war s a terrible thing, and any death... whatever you get the point. Then I read this:
"Israel will pay for daring to hunt the lion of Qassam," said one Hamas activist who gave his name as Ahmed, speaking near the wrecked building, a tangle of twisted metal, broken concrete and blood.
Right. Well you know what Ahmed - which I'm sure isn't your real name? Fuck you. Fuck you, and everyone who lives near you. Israel needs to bomb the shit out of your infrastructure and kill all those who would educate their children with only words of hate. Are these words of hate I'm spewing now? Maybe, maybe they are. I'll tell you this, though, there's no such god damn thing as "the lion of Qassam". There's just men. Men with families who bleed and die like the rest of us.

Israel is not run by terrorists who tell their people that the reason they have no modern conveniences is because the Jews have Israel. Israel does not have to explain away the crazy unevenness of a country where there is a street modeled after Rodeo Drive, but America is the great satan. Israel does not tell its soldiers that if they die in combat, 72 virgins await them in heaven for eternal pleasure. Israel has a central government that works, and random groups of people are not lobbing missiles willy-nilly over borders because no one cares to stop them.

Israeli children have schools where they learn how to read, and write, and do math. They are never taught that killing a group of people in an open market place or on a bus just because they aren't Jewish is the right thing to do.

Is the retaliation over-aggressive? Maybe. I cannot think so, though, not when the retaliation is for acts that deliberately provoke, acts that deliberately harm non-military personnel. The Israeli bombings are not random, they are targeted at terrorist leaders. At this point, I feel like we don't need to keep those terrorist leaders alive, any more.

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