Stay where you are

Stay where you are

Remember when they told you -- over and over -- that the government of Israel cares so much for every Jewish life that they'll trade 1,000 terrorists for 1 soldier or even the corpse of one soldier?

Then came October 7 and it's aftermath. 337 soldiers killed. That's more than all of the hostages of which the IDF has managed to rescue 7. They killed 3 by gunfire and probably more than 100 via bombing. There are thousands of wounded and by wounded we mean seriously maimed for life. Then there are the dozens, scores - we don't really know - that the air force killed when it shot at the cars heading back into Gaza.

Why are we in Gaza? To get revenge? Was the manhood of the war cabinet offended? Is it to destroy Hamas once and for all? You think that's going to happen? I'll bet you Hamas comes back stronger than ever. When the boys of Gaza look around at the destruction that Israel has wrought on their mothers, brothers, mosques, and society in general. Oh my gosh.

There's no eliminating Hamas. You have to build and fence and watch it. Now and again they'll send one of their pathetic missiles over. You respond with a targeted strike. We have been doing that for decades. It works as long as you are not too arrogant to disregard warnings. But what is an Israeli official if not arrogant?

From 2001 - 2014, 33 people died from Gazan rockets. That's far less than car accidents and smoking. It's also far less than the number of soldiers who have been killed since October 7. That's out of 18,928 rocket and mortar attacks in those years. When I hear a siren, and I have only heard a few in 10 years here, I laugh. The rockets are pretty lame.

As for the people living on the border, it's traumatic to hear the sirens frequently. But do they really have to live there? There's lots of open land in the center of the country, in the Galil. Why are they living in S'derot or on the Lebanese border? Why?

I have been amazed by how little has been said about the casualties. People look at it as the price somebody else has to pay. The consolation to these poor soldiers is that we now refer to them as heroes. I'll bet that each one of them would gladly take his life back and go without the hero designation.

What I have observed is that the average Israeli doesn't care at all about the deaths to soldiers. And of course they care about the deaths to Arabs even less than that. Actually, they kind of enjoy it. That's how sick this society has become. You want to live here?

No, the Israeli government doesn't care about every Jewish life. I can't say what it was like here 50 years ago, but Zionism has managed to eliminate every trace of Judaism in Jews that embrace Zionism. At first, they were like roses that were cut from the vine. They looked like flowers for a while. Now, Israel is just Sparta, a nation of war. Not a nice place to live. Stay where you are.