TO MY FELLOW MIDEAST PEACENIKS

I sent to my mailing list a satirical mock-up of the front page of the New York Times depicting the Warsaw Ghetto uprising as a disproportionate response of Jews to the Nazi holocaust. A number of respondents castigated me for making light of the holocaust and for the disgrace of mis-using the highly regarded Times to create this ironic piece.

If the point of my sending you the piece was not clear and if the irony of the piece was adumbrated by use of the renowned New York Times front page for the message, I point you to most of the world's news coverage of the Gaza War and the casting of Israel by all Muslim countries and many if not most of the other U.N. members, as the perpetrator of a holocaust while denying the fact of the Holocaust of the Jews. I do not believe this piece was a "disgrace" to the memory of the murdered Jews by the Nazis in the past and by the Arabs in the present.

I think the point of the piece was well taken. Did it deprecate the newspaper or disgrace the memory of the Holocaust? Not one jot or tittle!

The fact that there were and are "good" Germans and that there are "good" Arabs/Muslims does not mitigate or belittle the existential threat posed by the world of Islam to Israel and the Jewish People. When I see the grade-school textbooks in the Arab world teaching other than hatred of the Jews, and when I hear the Imams in their mosques preaching peace, I will have greater hope that one-on-one peace efforts will have meaningful weight for the future lives of my progeny and my People.

Perhaps you also may feel that Israel's response to the Hamas rocket attacks was, is, and will be, "disproportionate," and Hamas' use of civilians and civilian structures as strategic and tactical sacrificial lambs, and its continued rocket attacks despite its "truce" agreement, its holding a kidnapped soldier for over two years, its continued importation of war materielle rather than food and building materials, and its stated goal of Israel's destruction with the aid of Iran and Syria for sure and the surreptitious aid of other Muslim countries, is not disproportionate because unintentionally fewer Jews were killed.

I can tell you this from personal knowledge; Gaza civilians were the targets that Hamas set up to draw Israeli fire. Wherever and whenever possible, the Israeli army avoided civilian casualties. The army is trained that way. But shit happens, intentionally and unintentionally.

This struggle that you and I and many others are engaged in, has many faces. You may be on the cleanest end of it. That does not provide the same protection that kibbutz air raid shelters do. Nor does it save a life that the assassination of a terrorist does. Nor does it make the massive destruction of smuggling tunnels, rocket factories, terror cells, and rocket launching platforms more evil because it kills the population that willingly and enthusiastically supports Jew-killing and accidentally kills the civilians who are not involved directly or indirectly in the killing of Israelis.

I am not on the side of those who act to bring peace by deportation of Arabs and theft of Arab lands and destruction of Arab property. I am a realist and a pragmatist. As you perform to achieve the highest level of success you can in bringing peace to Jews and Arabs, so do I. And so do all my family and friends who have been and are in the Defense Army of Israel. And so do all the people who argue with me about the best means to achieve the impossible dream. Sadly, none of us have yet found the road to peace. But just as there are killers on both sides of the divide, I look for the moral people on both sides of the divide. I find a monstrously great difference between the way the Jews have been raised and the way the Muslims and specifically, the Palestinians, have been raised and educated. That foundational difference lies at the heart of our struggle for peace.

And equally important, the goals and interests of the many countries involved in the Middle East and its future may not be compatible with peace between the Palestinians and Israel.