No1ofConsequence3

Previous writing on the Arab/Israeli conflict @ 2 years old originally posted on the first incarnation of No1ofConsequence

Afik Zahavi

Afik Zahavi and his mother Ruth walked hand in hand to his preschool in Sderot, Israel yesterday morning. They awakened early, because Afik probably liked to watch a little TV before he left for school and Ruth probably liked him to have a nice warm breakfast before a day of playing under the southwestern Israeli sun. She cooked for him and probably packed his bag with a change of clothes, maybe a bathing suit and a blanket for nap time. She probably helped him into his shoes, because little boys around age 3 1/2 aren't quite big enough yet to put on their own shoes. Maybe she yawned a little because she and her husband stayed up late the night before with friends drinking tea and pondering if Sharon was really the right leader fo Israel and if the Gaza pullout plan would really make things better for Israel but worse for Sderot, because Sderot is so close to Gaza you can smell the abject poverty, desparation and irrational hatred. This morning she put that out of her mind as she got Afiki dressed... She probably called him Afiki because Israelis add an "eee" sound to their names when using them in a loving way. Or maybe she called him chamoodi, my cute one. They walked out of their house and down the street, Afiki's little hand reaching up to grasp her larger one. She probably occasionally looked down at him and wondered why G-d had blessed her with such a sweet loving child. I know this because you can't look down at a beautiful little boy around age 3 1/2 without wondering that. They came to the cross street, waiting at the intersection in downtown Sderot, the kindergarden just 20 yards away, across the intersection. Perhaps Afik saw some of his friends playing on the climbing toys outside or swinging, or digging in the sand. It was probably at that moment Ruth heard a faint whistling sound getting louder. Perhaps in the split second before the Qassam rocket exploded, shattering the quiet Sderot morning, Ruth Zahavi knew they were being shelled. The rocket exploded and Ruth was badly wounded in the legs and neck. Little Afik's legs were shredded by the blast and although the article did not give further details, he probably lost too much blood at the scene to be saved. Little boys, age 3 1/2 don't have much in the way of leg muscles or fat to protect them from shrapnel. Afik Zahavi is dead and Ruth, if she survives her injuries, will never recover. If my faith did not prohibit it, I would tatoo his name and face on my bicep so anytime some ignorant person tried to create moral equivalency between terrorists and Israelis I could roll up my sleeve, tell them this story and then knock them out.

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Israel & the Global Community

I recently read in about 50 different places that Israel will never be accepted by the world commuity if they don't stop the incursions into Gaza and stop targeted assasinations of high ranking terrorists. I also read a ridiculous statement on another web site I frequent that Israel is alienating itself from the world community.

Are you kidding me?

As if Israel was ever accepted by the world community to begin with. Only massive guilt for allowing 6 million of my brothers and sisters to be turned into air pollution and having our birthright stolen from us allowed the creation of Israel to begin with. I love how missiles targeting the same terrorists this country is fighting are now massacres. What's a homicide bomber guilty of when he takes a bomb belt filled with C4, nails and ball bearings, straps it on and gets on a school bus? There's moral equivalency? Get real.

It's ok for the US to defend itself against terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq and around the world, but G-d forbid the Jews stand up for themselves and say enough is enough. Enough pizza place bombings. Enough school bus bombings. Enough Islamic fundamentalists killing four Israeli girls and their mother for no reason whatsoever.

There is a town in the north of Israel called Kiryat Shmoneh (literal translation: Town 8) Routinely in the middle of the day, the air raid siren goes off and the entire population of the town has to rush to the nearest building, whether they live there or not, whether they know the people that live there or not and get into the security room. (for those unaware a "security room" is completely sealed off from the outside world with special filters that can protect the occupants from chemical and biological payloads) Why does this happen? Because about 3 times a week, some member of Hizbollah drives into the security zone between Israel and Lebanon and fires off a ketusha rocket. 90% of the time they don't hit anything, because they are about as accurate as a missile can be when you fire it out of the trunk of your car, but they can be adapted to carry WMD's, so you have to take them seriously.

Before 1967, when Syria held the Golan, residents of the Kibbutz Degania would have to run between buildings and always keep on the move, because Syrian soldiers would shoot down into the kibbutz, killing people tilling the fields and doing laundry and other such incendiary activities as that. The Syrian command would give monetary awards to soldiers who hit someone with rifle fire from the Golan.

Near Gaza, there is a little Israeli town called Sderot. It is routinely shelled with mortar fire from Gaza. People live with the constant fear of their kitchen exploding while they are having their morning orange juice.

Suicide bombers sometimes wear two devices or work in pairs. One bomber blows himself up, and when the rescue workers come to the aid of the injured, the second bomber walks into their midst and detonates so he can kill the aid workers and EMS personnel.

The order of battle in the territories is to put the rock throwing children in front of the women who are staggered in front of the men with AK-47's. So when you hear about the IDF shooting innocent women and children, you should remember they were probably standing in front of a father or husband who was shooting at the soldiers and using them as a human shield.

There have been roughly as many Jews displaced from Arab Nations as Arabs displaced from Israeli territory. (Israel is the size of NJ, the Arab world is the size of North America and Central America combined) Israel has absorbed the Jewish refugees, yet the Arab world refuses to accept the Palestinian Arabs into their countries. The microscopic population of Jews that are left in the Arab world are treated horrifically and live in fear. The 1.6 million Israeli Arabs that live within the borders of Israel are treated as well as the Jewish citizenry. The Israeli Arab women have the right to vote. The Israeli Arab political parties are part of the process and participate as full members of the government and there is an Israeli Arab Justice on the Supreme Court of Israel

In the year 2000, Ehud Barak made the following offer at Camp David:

Barak's offer to the Palestinians was the most substantial and far reaching that had ever been made. In Israel, people were stunned by the extent of the concessions that he was prepared to make. It is unclear whether the Israeli public was prepared to support Barak's deal. However they were never given the opportunity to endorse the proposals as Arafat rejected them out of hand. According to media reports Barak's offer included: · Israeli withdrawal from 95% of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and 100% of the Gaza Strip · The creation of a Palestinian state in those areas · The removal of isolated settlements that would be transferred to Palestinian control · Slices of Israeli land to be included in the Palestinian state to compensate for the percentage of the West Bank to become Israeli · Palestinian control over parts of Jerusalem including most of the Old City · "Religious Sovereignty" over the Temple Mount (rather than Israeli sovereignty, which had been in effect since 1967)

Let me be clear, Arafat got up and left the table. You know why? Because he got everything he asked for and he couldn't indiscriminately kill Israelis if he took the deal. He couldn't paint the Palestinians as victims if he took the deal. He couldn't fuel global anti Semitism if he took the deal and the Arab world would no longer have the "Israel has got to go" issue, if he took the deal. He proved in that one motion that there would be no peace while he lived.

The point is, at least know half the truth before you go making statements about Israel.