Casualties of War

Until a few hours ago I had not heard of World Central Kitchen. From what little I now know about WCK, it seems its staffers are genuine humanitarians, not pretenders hiding behind a charitable label. And they have played an essential role in distributing aid to Gazans.

Last night, seven of its workers who were part of an aid convoy leaving a Deir el-Balah warehouse located in the center of Gaza were killed in an unintentional airstrike carried out by the Israel Defense Forces. It is early hours in the investigation. The IDF has expressed regret and said it was committed to discovering what happened and how.

Understandably, WCK has suspended its work. Other aid groups may follow suit.

The “international community” is tripping over itself to condemn Israel. As if the IDF, which gave its (plainly uncoordinated) support to the WCK, would have purposely killed the aid workers, as if horrible mistakes don’t happen in the fog of war.

The nighttime attack on the logoed car carrying the aid workers caused not only a dreadful loss of life but also a blow to Israeli morale – or at least the morale of this Israeli. On the one hand, we can pinpoint and take out a lot of bad guys in a military compound in the heart of Damascus, but we can’t locate over 100 Israeli hostages within driving distance of Tel Aviv. And now, it appears human error has led to us blowing up a marked aid vehicle.

Our killing of real innocents saps our capacity for resilience, especially because it comes days after the 600^th IDF soldier killed in action was buried and with hundreds still hospitalized with life-changing war wounds.

The entire situation is heartbreaking.

With no scruples, our enemies use medical centers and ambulances as instruments of war. Al-Shifa Hospital was destroyed by Hamas – yet Israel will be vilified. Hamas exploits their civilian population as cannon fodder. As the Islamists see it, martyred Palestinian noncombatants, particularly babies and women, are essential soft power components in the strategy to destroy Israel. That is why civilians were kept out of the vast Hamas underground network below Gaza, where they might have been safe from Israeli bombardment of above-ground Hamas structures.

Hamas launched this war. So far, frustratingly, the polls I have seen show that its onslaught continues to enjoy widespread support among average Palestinians. A war that has claimed untold lives, shattered peace of mind, blasted buildings and dislocated thousands on all sides from Gaza and its borders to the West Bank and from Bab el-Mandeb to Lebanon and its borders. Yet, seemingly, if they could begin October 7, 2023, all over again, they would change nothing. From the Palestinian point of view, did they not with wanton abandon pillage, torture, rape, and butcher? Did they not capture and hold stretches of “occupied Palestine” for days? How intoxicating those first days after October 7 were. What good bloodsport!  

And didn’t the war unleash a tsunami of anti-Israelism? Look how it mobilized the world against the Jews – marching every Saturday in the millions in NY and London and Madrid, indeed everywhere TikTok and Instagram can reach, where a vacuous zoomer mind can be manipulated. And has it not created an axis against the Zionists comprised of wokes, socialists, Muslims, “people of color,” and ultra-right-wingers? Has it not shown the Democratic Party to be a weak reed of support for Israel? Has it not been revealed (as if that were necessary) that the mercurial transactional Donald Trump is a potential problem when (as may be expected) he regains the White House?

October 7 has made campuses treacherous places for pro-Israel Jews – really any Jew who won’t throw a keffiyeh around their neck. Quisling Jews have joined the jackals. Suburban communities – the latest being Teaneck, NJ –are subjected to neo-Hamas demonstrations. Major American highways and train stations are shut down. Campaigners have mobilized a worldwide – from the River to the Sea – intifada campaign to destroy the Zionist enterprise. 

Hamas has already exploited the deaths of the seven innocent aid workers to further its nefarious goals. And Western politicians and legacy media can be expected to jump on the Hamas pick-up truck.

So, yes, this Israeli is exasperated. I am saddled with Binyamin Netanyahu, who has ruined Israel’s brand. He fragmented the country to stay out of prison even before the war. His tally of domestic and international blunders is more than any politician has a right to accrue.

He never had the guts to tell Israelis that “bringing the hostages home” can’t be the goal of the war, for the only way to guarantee the safety of our captives is by opening the floodgates of hell – of releasing killers who make Yahya Sinwar seem like an obnoxious boy scout. That there was no way to cut a deal with Hamas without losing to Hamas.

Yet, in all his duplicity, Netanyahu has held firm in this one thing. Yes, he has mismanaged the war to keep his cabinet together, so no "day after" plans for Gaza. But at least he is not repeating the mistake he made in the Gilad Schalit episode.

He has to go, but I am not joining the protests against him because the protests are a complete mishmash – against the draft-dodging Haredim and for early elections – but also a prisoner-for-hostage exchange.

How can the image of tens of thousands of Israelis protesting the government not give Hamas succor?

And by the way, the polls are now hinting that the Great Charlatan is recapturing some of his old luster  –  that Chuckie Schumer and other international bigwigs’ efforts to pressure Israelis to dump Bibi may be having the reverse effect.

See why I am frustrated?