Sunday, May 05, 2024

Why is Israeli Suffering Almost Completely Ignored?

Anti Netanyahu protest in Israel last night (Euronews)
Last night there was a huge anti Netanyahu protest in Israel, The largest since the October Hamas massacre. It was led by angry hostage family members demanding he make any deal with Hamas that will free the hostages. Including a permanent cease fire. While they were at it - they demanded that Netanyahu  resign as prime minister - accusing him of prolonging the war at the expense of the hostages in order to save his own skin

Fortunately the majority of the Israeli public disagree and support his goal of destroying Hamas. One might think that all of the hostage families and families of massacred victims agree with last night's protest. But that would not be true. This is not to say that they would vote for Netanyahu in the next election. It is to say that on this one issue they are one with him.

This was made evident by the mother of a young woman slaughtered by Hamas on that October day. She was interviewed by CBS reporter Martha Teichner during a tour of a new October 7th museum located near the 911 memorial in Manhattan. 

During that interview Teichner asked her about this very issue: Should Israel continue the war against Hamas until they destroy them - regardless of the human cost? Something the US and the entire world is against. 

Her response was crystal clear. The Israeli people must be protected. Hamas must be destroyed. They must not be allowed to survive another day to do again what they did on October 7th . Which was exactly what they promised to do over and over again until they get all of Palestine back!

This was followed by the obvious question: What about all of the civilian Palestinian casualties that will surely result  if Israel proceeds with its goal? Her response there was just as clear and just as right. She regrets any loss of life on either side. But what is Israel supposed to do when Hamas uses its own people as human shields? 

If Israel is going to protect its people, it has no choice but to eliminate an implacable mortal enemy. (Obviously Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties ...contrary to the claims of many of the rabid anti Israel protestors.)  But they will not stop until their goal is achieved no matter what Hamas throws in their way.

This is what’s missing from the media. Their focus is almost exclusively on Palestinian suffering. Precious little focus is on Israeli suffering - with the exception of an occasional piece like this one on an obscure Sunday morning magazine type show. 

To the casual observer the almost exclusive media focus on Palestinian suffering combined with their visceral hate of Israel’s prime minister will surely influence the Americans who are not keenly attuned to the abovementioned details. It then become easy to see why they sympathize with Palestinians without thinking about what Israelis have -  and still are - going through. Without being reminded what this war is all about it should not surprise anyone that Palestinians are getting the lion’s share of sympathy while Israel gets thee lion’s share of the blame.

This is also what’s missing from the student protests on college campuses all over the country. But that is more a function of the participants being influenced by charismatic anti establishment leftist professors dripping with anti Israel and anti American sentiment. Not to mention the fact that many of those protesters are not students at all but infiltrators with ulterior motives.

This is also why there are many young Jews involved in these protests. They have little respect for their own Jewish heritage (about which they know very little) and have replaced it with  enormous respect for their ‘brave’ charismatic professors whose ideology they so  admiringly imbibe in.. 

I only wish the mainstream media would feature Israeli suffering to at least the same extent they do Palestinian suffering. But that would take a degree of integrity that seems to no longer exist in the mainstream media.