"It is true that a ceasefire now would represent a defeat for Israel, and a win for Hamas. I cannot blame any Israeli or any Jew for rejecting it on those grounds."
I also cannot blame any Israeli or any Jew for rejecting a ceasefire on those grounds. But: I don’t think that’s exactly the grounds on which they reject a ceasefire.
I think the October 7 massacre was deeply traumatic for both Israelis and for the Jews of the diaspora, conjuring up ghosts of the Holocaust, and of the pogroms under Tsarist Russia. This wasn’t just another “let’s launch some more rockets against the enemy” (just business as usual, sadly, between Gaza and Israel), it was something up close and personal, and aimed at the Jews as Jews, and designed to inflict the maximum amount of cruelty and torture and suffering upon its victims. There’s no need to rehearse the sordid details: girls and women were raped; babies were brutalized, and yes, sometimes beheaded; entire families were burned alive.
Most Israelis don’t really care about scoring a victory over Hamas, they just want to not be subject to such medieval pogroms.
And I’m sorry, but there is no other people or nation on this earth of whom a “ceasefire” would be demanded, after such a brutal massacre, and before they had even responded! The Jews aren’t even allowed to bury and mourn their dead, apparently, before being convicted of “war crimes” and “genocide” in the left-liberal court of public opinion.
That said, I don’t know the answer, and I’m pretty sure we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, on the brink of World War Three…
"It is true that a ceasefire now would represent a defeat for Israel, and a win for Hamas. I cannot blame any Israeli or any Jew for rejecting it on those grounds."
I also cannot blame any Israeli or any Jew for rejecting a ceasefire on those grounds. But: I don’t think that’s exactly the grounds on which they reject a ceasefire.
I think the October 7 massacre was deeply traumatic for both Israelis and for the Jews of the diaspora, conjuring up ghosts of the Holocaust, and of the pogroms under Tsarist Russia. This wasn’t just another “let’s launch some more rockets against the enemy” (just business as usual, sadly, between Gaza and Israel), it was something up close and personal, and aimed at the Jews as Jews, and designed to inflict the maximum amount of cruelty and torture and suffering upon its victims. There’s no need to rehearse the sordid details: girls and women were raped; babies were brutalized, and yes, sometimes beheaded; entire families were burned alive.
Most Israelis don’t really care about scoring a victory over Hamas, they just want to not be subject to such medieval pogroms.
And I’m sorry, but there is no other people or nation on this earth of whom a “ceasefire” would be demanded, after such a brutal massacre, and before they had even responded! The Jews aren’t even allowed to bury and mourn their dead, apparently, before being convicted of “war crimes” and “genocide” in the left-liberal court of public opinion.
That said, I don’t know the answer, and I’m pretty sure we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, on the brink of World War Three…
Waist deep in the Big Muddy.