Rabbi Andy Bachman on the Gaza situation

Rabbi Andy Bachman posted his thoughts on the Gaza situation:

As Israel’s incursion into the Gaza Strip moves well into its second week, most of us watch from the sidelines or a distance with a heavy, heavy heart over the loss of innocent life. No one deserves to die who has not brought death on to him or herself, least of all an innocent child. So to be fundamentally clear: even those of us who support Israel’s efforts to break Hamas and seriously damage its ability to torment Israeli towns with terror mourn loss of every innocent life and grieve with those families. In addition, our hearts go out to those terrified by bombs dropping in homes,
on streets, in mosques.

But Israel’s war, I believe, is a just war.

When Israel pulled out of Gaza, tearing deeply at the fabric of its own society to uproot families there (a disengagement I strongly favored and still do) the entire world was able to see if it chose to look that Israel was willing to risk the unity of the
nation to take fundamental steps toward peace. The Hamas leadership took the
exact opposite steps, took no risk, brutally murdered its own in waging violent
and bloody civil war with the Palestinian Authority, and continued on its self-destructive path of trying to wage existential war against Israel. Never has it seriously addressed Israel’s justified existence; never has it accepted
Israel’s RIGHT to exist; and never has it seriously sought to make peace.
Rather, it has embarked on a hundred years plan, to wear down the psyche of the
Israeli population with terror, kidnapping, and the selling of a religio-fundamentalist viewpoint that completely de-legitimizes any Jewish claim to the land.

It’s truly depressing.

. . .

And, I’d point out to people willing to read the situation: the West Bank is relatively calm, not only because of security but because the PA was defeated by Hamas in
Gaza and the PA has given tacit approval to Israel’s operation. Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia–each of whom bear as much as or more responsibility for the continued statelessness of Palestinians by not working harder in partnership with Israel for peace (how did all those weapons get into Gaza?)–have given Israel tacit and at time explicit approval for these operations.

Israel will continue to be portrayed as illegitimate; blood-sucking; heartless; amoral; genocidal; racist–you name it. It’s a rhetoric that has lost most of its meaning, sadly, because for years and years people are more comfortable talking and pontificating than holding leadership accountable not only in Washington, DC or on the college campus but in Gaza City and Ramallah.

Remember Ehud Barak’s quote: If I were a Palestinian youth, I’d fight the occupation, too. That is the man who is leading Israel in this war. Despite war’s brutal reality, when Hamas wakes up from its delusional nightmare that Israel has no place in this world, it will in fact find an incredible capacity for making the necessary sacrifices as a nation to live in peace.

Read the entire text here.