Did you have younger siblings when you were growing up? I did. Did your younger brother ever taunt you by throwing his dirty socks into your bedroom? Mine did. Did you ever complain to your mother about your younger brother’s shenanigans, only to have her tell you, “Never mind him”? I did.
Now imagine a more annoying scenario. Imagine a neighbor who decided to allow her dogs – who were kenneled outside 24 / 7 – to bark and snarl and attack each other at any time of the day or night. They would start to bark at midnight, or at 3 a.m., or even in the middle of the day. They would not stop after a few minutes; they would sometimes continue for hours. What’s more, these dogs inhabited a backyard that was seldom mowed, so that when you were mowing your own property, these animals often lunged at the fence, trying to attack you (but luckily could never quite manage vaulting the fence). I had such a neighbor.
Now put yourself in the place of hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have to run to shelters daily, sometimes hourly, because their Arab neighbors are lobbing bombs at them! Bombs that were not being provoked by military action on your part, or on the part of your government. The bombs that come randomly, but they come daily. Imagine being in the middle of cooking dinner when the alarm is sounded for an incoming rocket. Imagine being in the middle of changing your baby’s diaper; imagine being in the middle of a well-deserved nap. Now imagine that this scenario has been going on for years in the place where you have been peacefully co-existing with the people who live and work in your neighborhood. There is no other reason for the rocket attacks against you, except that you are a member of a certain religion. You are Jewish.
I ask my fellow Americans if they can imagine such a thing. I ask them when a rocket landed in the parking lot of their grocery store. I ask them when they have had to interrupt their church service to head for the nearest bomb shelter. (Note: By law, every Israeli house or building has to have access to a nearby bomb shelter[i].) I ask when an explosion has rocked their favorite bakery or coffee place.
No one in my state has ever experienced the scenario that I have just described. However, many, many people – even in America – blithely pass over the facts of the daily existence of thousands and thousands of peaceful, law-abiding Israelis, simply because they cannot imagine that such Jew-hatred exists. But it does.
According to Wikipedia and the Jewish Virtual Library[ii], at least 6,000 rockets have been fired at Israel since 2005 (the year when Israel officially turned over the Gaza Strip to Palestinian self-government). None of these rockets were fired in retaliation of aggressive moves on Israel’s part. All were sudden, unprovoked events. Some of these rockets fell in unoccupied fields; some were intercepted by new technology that targeted the missiles in flight and destroyed them while they were in the air. Some hit houses, places of worship (including Christian monasteries), and shops. Some actually landed in the Gaza strip itself – so bad was the aim of their launchers!! Why are there not daily reports of these events?
More importantly, why was there not universal outrage exhibited after the report of the slaughter of innocent Israeli (and foreign) men, women, children and babies on October 7, 2023? Why were there not cries of condemnation over the murderous, gleefully-filmed atrocities? Why did not more people immediately call for their governments to condemn Hamas in the strongest possible terms?
I will suggest an answer: indifference. The same indifference that prompted an oft-weary mother to say to an aggrieved child: “Forget about it.” The same indifference that led a local government to ignore complaints of a years-long un-neighborly, unfriendly scenario that deprived innocent people of their right to sleep and the peaceful enjoyment of their property. The same indifference that has ignored rocket attacks and other destructive, anti-Jewish events (such as Hamas-supporting mobs on the streets of America) in the name of “getting along to get along.”
I must declare that truth-denying indifference is headed your way shortly! And it will be worse than having to cope with stinky socks or forever-barking dogs!
[i] “Merkhav Mugan.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkhav_Mugan
[ii] “Rocket & Mortar Attacks Against Israel by Date (2001 – Present). Jewish Virtual Library. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/palestinian-rocket-and-mortar-attacks-against-israel#2015
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