8 | DECEMBER 28 • 2023 J
N

guest column

Dear World, Israel Doesn’t
Need Your Lectures
A

s every Jew knows,
the rules are different
when it comes to
them and Israel. When Israel
was brutally attacked on Oct.
7, people across
much of the
world blamed
Israel for causing
the war. Within
days, millions
more unleashed
their inner Jew
hatred, which was
apparently lurking just beneath
the surface.
From the moment Israel
struck back, it has been under
a microscope like no other
country at war. Since then,
on practically a daily basis, it
has had to endure incessant
lectures on how it should and
should not defend itself. World
leaders, the U.N., the media,
celebrities, college kids and just
about everyone else freely give
Israel — not Hamas, shockingly
— stern instructions on how it
must conduct this war.
Even Israel’s staunchest allies
like the U.S., Great Britain,
Canada and others quickly
joined in the popular chorus
that “Israel has a right to defend
itself, but it must take every
measure to avoid civilian casual-
ties’” or some similar words.
President Biden, Vice
President Harris and Secretary
of State Anthony Blinken use a
variation of these words every
time they publicly address the
issue, as do most members of
Congress. When they meet with
Israeli leaders, they proudly tell
us, they always make a point to
deliver the message that Israel
must care about civilians. At

every turn, from seemingly
everywhere, it is Israel — the
country that was attacked —
that finds itself subjected to lec-
tures, reprimands and scoldings.
One can only imagine what
Israeli leaders must think each
time they have to endure these
lectures. How hard and offen-
sive it must be for them to bite
their tongues and not explode
when chastised about their lack
of humanity. Or the insinuation
that they are capable of the
same kind of savagery and bar-
barism as Hamas. Or that they
relish the deaths of civilians or
wantonly target them, no differ-
ent than the terrorist group that
seized babies, beheaded others,
raped their mothers and kid-
napped hundreds of civilians,
from babies to the elderly.
Hamas, one would assume,
must be delighted by all the lat-
est scrutiny and criticism lodged
at Israel. It has been handed a
gift, a new talking point, one
that neutralizes their heinous
war crimes and paints both
Israel and them with the same
brush — a huge win for them.
They now have new words to
sprinkle in alongside the oldies
like “genocide,
” “apartheid,
”
“from the river to the sea” and
so on.
Israel may understandably
feel constrained to fully lash out
to the criticism because of dip-
lomatic pressures. They are at
war, and they have to be mind-
ful of public relations. But those
of us who are unapologetically
pro-Israel are not so tongue-
tied. We can be blunt. We can
tell the world what needs to be
said: Stop the lectures. Go give
them to Hamas. Spare us your

moral superiority. We appreciate
your concern for humanity, but
Israel doesn’t need your remind-
ers. It gets it. It always has.
The irony is that most of the
loudest choruses come from
groups that have never support-
ed Israel’s right to exist. Their
hypocrisy is transparent to
anyone who knows about these
groups or the money behind
them. They portray themselves
as moral crusaders for justice,
but, in reality, they’re just plain
old-fashioned Jew haters. Many
of them are the worst kind,
actually, because they support
the destruction of Israel and the
genocide of the Jewish people.
Perhaps it’s a good time
to remind Hamas apologists
that for years Hamas has been
launching rockets into Israel
— during a time of a so-called
“ceasefire” — trying to kill as
many Jewish civilians as possi-
ble. For years, I have had an app
on my phone, “Red Alert,
” that
signals when Hamas rockets are
launched into Israel. The alerts
are nonstop and have been for
years. Maybe 1% of the time, if
that, I see something about it in
the media. In southern Israel, in
particular, grabbing your chil-
dren and sprinting to a bomb
shelter as the rockets are coming
is a regular part of life. Yet the
world has been silent. Who can
recall a single time Hamas was
lectured by the world commu-
nity for these constant attacks?
Israel is facing a conundrum
with only horrible options.
As of this writing, Hamas is
holding 137 hostages. It is
hiding out beneath or besides
densely populated areas, which
Hamas uses as human shields.

At this point in the war, Israel
has discovered more than
800 tunnel shafts in Gaza, all
designed to kill Israelis. Many
of these tunnels, we now know,
contain vast caches of arms,
sleeping barracks and air-
conditioned meeting rooms
that are underneath schools,
hospitals, mosques, homes, even
one in a U.N. office. As long
as these terror tunnels exist,
the existential threat to Israel
continues.
The reality is that since the
day of its inception 75 years
ago, Israel’s enemies have never
accepted its right to exist,
leaving Israel in a perpetual
state of war. The first war it
loses will be its last. The current
cast of armchair quarterbacks
are quick to give their advice
from safe spaces thousands of
miles away. Most have never
been to Israel nor studied it
enough to understand what
it’s like to live under constant
attack. Or, more probably, they
simply don’t care since they’
d
just as soon see Israel destroyed.
Yet, they incessantly lecture
Israel as if they are morally
superior or possess military
brilliance that Israel never
considered. Both are laughable.
Their lectures are
unnecessary, ignorant and
hypocritical. Give it a rest. Israel
has its hands full at the moment
and will conduct this war as
effectively and mercifully as it
sees fit in order to continue to
survive.

Mark Jacobs

PURELY COMMENTARY

Correction
In “Fall Fix-Up,” homeowner
Rae Nachbar’s name was
misspelled.