Hamas is playing with fire. They sowed the wind and now they and the people with whom they shield themselves are reaping the whirlwind. This example of cause and effect appears in the Bible in Hosea 8:7 where the prophet writes: “They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.” There is a reaction to every action, a response to every stimulus. This is Newton’s Third Law. Or Skinner’s principle of operant conditioning. Hamas just pushed the wrong lever. This is just how it is. Cause and effect.

In Hinduism and Buddhism this is sometimes called Karma. In this instance, it is commonly described as “what goes around, comes around.” Karma can be either good or bad. According to the Times of India:

Good deeds create positive karma, and bad ones create negative karma. Positive karma will lead to good fortune and a blessed life; negative karma will lead to misfortune and suffering.”

Misfortune and suffering. This is just what the good people in Gaza are experiencing at this very moment. In their name, the terrorist group Hamas murdered and butchered (as in dismembered) over 1,000 Israeli men, women and children. Some were quickly dispatched, others tortured, some were burned alive. Like the Jews of Cologne in the featured illustration were burned (1349.) Like the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were burned (1943.) Like the Jewish children in the photo at the bottom of this post were burned (2023.)

In Nahum, chapter 1, verse 3 that Biblical prophet writes:

The Lord is slow to anger but great in power;
    the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished.
His way is in the whirlwind and the storm,
    and clouds are the dust of his feet.”

Note that even though God is great in power, He is also slow to anger. He is not arbitrary and capricious Justice is slow, deliberate even in our own mortal lives and societies. And so it should be. Our judges consider the law, the facts of the crime, the circumstances and the consequences. So it is with God. We read in the Old Testament that God at one time decided to punish humanity with a great flood for their sins unless they repented. He determined prior in eo to send the flood after a servant named Methuselah died, and then He gave Methuselah the longest recorded lifespan in human history, hoping that people would change their ways given those extra years of Methuselah’s life. God is the greatest judge of them all. But notice in the second clause where we are told that God will not leave the guilty unpunished. This is a promise, not a hypothetical, and not even an assumption. The guilty can run and hide, but they will eventually be caught and sometimes they cannot even hide. When Nahum writes that God’s way is in the whirlwind and the storm, he is speaking of forces of nature rarely visited on this planet. These are potential calamities like hypercanes with wind speeds equal to or greater than 500 mph, ground that convulses and liquifies as if caught in a Richter 9.5 force earthquake. Krakatoa cubed (K³.) Few people who may experience such an event would live to tell about it.

What did the people of Gaza think Israel would do after such an unspeakable deed as this? On the Jewish Shabbat no less, on the holiest day in the Jewish year? The settlers in the kibbutzim were peaceful, tolerant people. Gentle. Their children were the future of Israel. But if Hamas has its way, this is just the beginning, and Gazans need to get their affairs in order. Only late last week, Ghazi Hamad, a senior leader in Hamas promised to repeat this massacre “again and again.” In his own words he said:

We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again. The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight. Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”

This means that unless Israel can eradicate Hamas, what is happening in Gaza now will be repeated over and over again in the years that follow. And it’s not Hamas that will pay. It is the people of Gaza. It’s the Palestinian people.

What will stop this conflict?

• Israel has pledged to a ceasefire if Hamas releases the hostages. No doubt, many of the hostages were killed before Israel fired the first missile or dropped the first bomb, but Hamas will never admit to the deed and will blame Israel instead. However, to return the living hostages and the bodies of the dead will at least buy the Gazans some temporary respite.
• Gazans must do their part to rid themselves of Hamas. Turning them in would be a good first step. Not every terrorist in Hamas is eager to die. Many members of Hamas are trying to flee Gaza at this very moment. According to a NY Times report, almost a third of the people on the official evacuation lists for seriously wounded Palestinians are known Hamas terrorists.
• It is a well known tactic among Middle East terrorists to place missile launchers on the roofs of schools, or near mosques and other public buildings. Hamas is no exception. Using emergency vehicles such as ambulances to move fighters from place-to-place happens across the globe in times of war. In Gaza, at the al-Shifa hospital, Hamas has a vital command center in the basement, has used its radiology department to torture people and Hamas gunmen roam the halls freely, according to many sources including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In this war, Hamas snipers fire at Israeli forces from hospital windows. Mass casualties are unavoidable in the process of rooting out terrorists in situations like these as long as the terrorists use the people of Palestine as shields.
• Palestinians could enjoy more water, food and scarce commodities if Hamas did not skim the lion’s share of that aid which is delivered by international organizations. If it is designated for the Gaza Relief Agency, that is Hamas. If it is earmarked for the Gaza Health Department, that is Hamas. Trying to find a public official in the Gaza Strip who is not a member of Hamas is like trying to find an honest man in Congress.
• One cannot believe the casualty lists. Certainly the number of dead or wounded Palestinians is horrifying, but they are as false as they are horrifying, fudged to manipulate public opinion among Palestinians, but mostly in Western countries like the U.S.
• The number of Gazans dead or dying (including future victims) are unavoidable unless Hamas surrenders or retreats for a last stand apart from densely populated areas. The late Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat used to surround himself with children during the Lebanese Civil War and after they were booted out of Jordan for causing trouble there. It was not that Arafat was overly fond of children. Fearing assassination by Syrians, Lebanese, Israelis or some other radical Palestinian terrorist group, he used these Palestinian children in Beirut and Tripoli as shields even as Hamas uses Palestinian children today.
• Notice that the Arab nations have done nothing more than vote for a resolution condemning Israel to the exclusion of condemning Hamas. They dont want war. Lebanon is in a deep economic depression at the moment. Syria is fighting a civil war that is entering its second decade. The Saudis were on the cusps of a very lucrative financial deal with Israel that has now been scuttled. Muslim nations such as Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt and others don’t want to fight another war with Israel. They are tired of the sort of nonsense and senseless violence that Muslim terrorist groups perpetrate against Israel (and occasionally other Muslim countries as well.)
• Nor am I giving Israel a free pass either. I respect the government of Israel because it is the only democracy in that part of the world. And, I’m not just referring to free elections (if there are any elections in that part of the world at all.) Israel has an independent and very busy judiciary, as you are well aware if you follow Israeli news very closely. Even the prime minister is subject to the law. He is not a dictator or a monarch. I have less patience for the far right politicians and trigger-happy settlers who live on the West Bank. They need to be able to defend themselves, but they need to avoid looking for trouble.

Conclusion

It has been a month since the (more than) one thousand Israelis were murdered. Already there are some suggesting that the deed was a “false flag” operation perpetrated perhaps by the Israelis, themselves! Others are disputing it ever happened at all! And it’s no wonder. With Holocaust deniers trying to rewrite history and extinguish the memory of (more than) six millions Jews killed by the Nazis, what’s another thousand more Jews murdered by Hamas?

I guess I just believe that with fifty Muslim countries in the world and even more Christian countries, that Jews deserve their own country. Just one country in a world with more than two hundred. A “safe space” as they say in academia. At the very least. Is that asking for too much?

Israel cannot afford to lose a war. They would cease to be a nation, and this is the goal of Hamas, al-Qa’ida, Hizballah, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban and many other mid-eastern terrorist groups. This tiny country is fighting the forces of darkness and the devil, himself. Large numbers of ordinary Americans are blindly lending their voices to the Neo-Nazis, the anti-American Islamic terrorist groups (some of which are listed above and have killed our own citizens and soldiers), the conspiracy theorists, the enemies of America abroad such as current regime in Iran and Jew-hating, anti-Zionist populations around the world at this very moment. Because the U.S. has not won a war since 1945, there are Republicans and Democrats who want to deny Israel a victory as well. This cycle of violence cannot go on forever. Someone must take a stand, before the U.S. homeland, itself, is attacked again. This time possibly by Hamas.

Note: The image below may be disturbing to some.

Two Israeli toddlers burned to death. Mourn for them. Mourn for the Palestinian children who have died. But don’t mourn for one group to the exclusion of the other. Photo credit: IDF.