ET CETERA

NIGHT CAP

Who's Goliath?

By Harry Kirsbaum

I

was reading a chapter in Malcolm
Gladwell's book David and Goliath:

Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Bat-
tling Giants (Little, Brown and Com-

pany, 2013), which described how the
Civil Rights Movement was launched
into a national cause by a single pho-
tograph taken in Birmingham, Ala., on
May 3, 1963.
Marching for civil rights and using
children as non-violent protesters, Wyatt
Walker, executive director of the South-
ern Christian Leadership Conference
led by Martin Luther King Jr., went up
against Eugene"Bull"Connor, the city's
public safety commissioner and a racist.
After two days of protesting, the
jail filled up, but the young protesters
kept coming. Bull Connor was forced to
discourage them another way. He set
the fire hoses on them; then he brought
in the dogs.
A photograph taken of a teenage
boy attacked by a police dog made its
way to the cover of the New York Times,
and turned the tide of the Civil Rights
Movement.
Walker knew that sending kids into

harm's way would make for good visu-
als in the press, and he was right. The
Civil Rights Movement was faltering; the
protesters were overwhelming under-
dogs wherever they marched until that
photo was taken. A year later, Congress
passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
I thought about Gaza while reading
this and wondered if Hamas thinks this
strategy applies to them.
It doesn't. Not when you examine
the goal.
Even though they both used chil-
dren to make a point, Martin Luther
King wanted equality for his people.
Hamas wants the destruction of the
Jewish people.
It's one thing to send children out as
peaceful protesters. It's completely dif-
ferent to fire rockets from schools and
use them as human shields.
Yes, the press is always looking for
good visuals, like Israeli tanks and
soldiers marching into Gaza, bombs hit-
ting houses and apartments filled with
innocent children. But Israel is no more
a "Goliath"than Hamas is the "David"
As of press time, the reported death

toll is more than 1,000 for Gazans, and
more than 50 Israelis, but the toll could
be so much worse if Israel were a true
Goliath.
As much as Hamas talks about killing
all Jews everywhere and driving Israelis
into the Mediterranean Sea, it is Israel
that has the capacity to obliterate Gaza
any time it wants. Yet it doesn't.
Although the Iron Dome has protect-
ed Israelis in the past, no other country
on Earth would put up with rocket at-
tacks. And no other country would drop
leaflets and make phone calls warning
citizens that they have five minutes
before the bombing begins.
Israel accepted a cease-fire agree-
ment sponsored by Egypt three weeks
ago, and Hamas answered with more
rocket attacks. Hamas is solely respon-
sible for every death since then.
Hamas might claim it is the under-
dog, but it isn't. There is no underdog
in this situation. There's a constant sim-
mering terrorist threat that boils over
into a major confrontation every couple
of years, then simmers down again with
some conditions that are usually forced
onto Israel.
The Palestinians wanted concrete
to rebuild the bombed-out buildings
a couple of years ago. Israel blanched,

A Palestinian smuggling tunnel in Rafah

and said it would be used to build tun-
nels. When Israel relented and allowed
concrete, Hamas built — not homes,
not bomb shelters for civilians — but
beautiful, arched tunnels from which it
could stealthily move rockets to bomb
Israel.
Now Israel will not leave Gaza until all
the tunnels are destroyed.
Anti-Israel, anti-Semitic protests
have taken place all over the world,
and there's no escaping it. Protesters at
the Ann Arbor Art Fair on July 18 were
heard chanting,"From the river to the
sea, Palestine will be free"
At. An. Art. Fair.
It's been said a million times before,
but it's worth repeating. If Hamas would
lay down its arms and recognize Israel's
right to exist, peace would reign in the
region. If Israelis would lay down their
arms, they would be slaughtered.
And there's no photo that conveys
that fact. RT

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