The Frog and the Scorpion
October 29, 2023
Gaza is a godforsaken place. (Why do most residents still worship that god?) Two million people crammed into an overcrowded ghetto. A prison camp. Long a wretched hell-hole, now even basic essentials of life and communication are cut off. With bombs raining down, hundreds of apartment buildings demolished, thousands killed (mostly women and children). And now comes worse yet, the ground invasion.
All for what? What can Israelis possibly hope to achieve? We’re told they have a right to defend themselves. Well, sure — but how does this wanton slaughter do that? Prime Minister Netanyahu says the aim is to destroy Hamas. Seems like whack-a-mole; a fool’s errand. Some Hamas guys may stand and present themselves for extermination, but others won’t wear badges, melting into the civilian labyrinth.
Then there are all the hostages. Good luck on that too. A brutal ground war seems more likely to get them killed than released or rescued.
The October 7 massacre was likewise mad. What could Hamas possibly have hoped to achieve? Certainly not their Palestinian “liberation” mantra. It was sure to immiserate even more the very people whom Hamas purports to champion. Coming to power in Gaza in 2006, the organization might have devoted their efforts to building its economy — instead they’ve actually worked to ensure its destruction. While of course the inhuman barbarism of Hamas atrocities blackens any color of moral justice.
Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? Or Martin Luther King, Jr.? Where is the Anwar Sadat, the Mandela and de Klerk here?
Old fable: A scorpion asks to cross a river on a frog’s back. He objects that he’ll die if stung. “Why would I do that?” replies the scorpion. “Then we’d both drown.” So the frog agrees. Midway, the scorpion stings him. “Why did you do that?” he cries as he sinks. “Because,” says the scorpion, “this is the Middle East.”
And what is Israel’s plan for the day after? Who’ll be responsible for administering Gaza? Not us, says Israel, having tried that before, disastrously. Not Hamas of course. Not the moribund West Bank’s Palestinian Authority, who’d enter Gaza as alien enemies. And not any sort of international force, a thankless mission nobody is willing to undertake. Israel is sowing a next-door anarchy which can only bite it in the rear.
Netanyahu casts this as a war for Israel’s very survival. But at the end of the day — for all the savagery of October 7, and all Hamas’s wild fantasies — Palestinian terrorism is no existential threat to Israel. October 7 killed something like one ten-thousandth of its population. Such attacks cannot destroy Israel. Making all the apocalyptic verbiage about defending itself beside the point. The real issue is whether torturing Gaza serves any purpose. I can’t see how. It should be clear by now that there’s no deterring enemies like Hamas deranged by hatred. Israel’s cruel crazed response just stokes that hatred even more — while blackening its own color of moral legitimacy.
Israel is its own worst enemy. Why do I increasingly feel the world is going nuts?