The list below shows the top ten reasons why, I believe, that the United States – under the Joe Biden Administration – should call for a cease-fire in regard to the Israel-Hamas conflict, and keep calling for a cease-fire until it gets one.
This list should
also suffice as a reason for President Biden to instruct the Navy ship, which
is currently carrying two thousand U.S. Marines and soldiers to the Israeli
battle front, to turn around, before something goes wrong, and before it is too late
to avoid a wider catastrophe.
1. A cease-fire
could achieve bipartisan support. First, by achieving peace, and avoiding the
flattening and destruction of the Gaza Strip, which Democrats would appreciate.
Second, it could serve as a chance for Republicans to embarrass President Biden
for approving the deletion of the tweet, by Secretary of State Antony Blinken,
which praised the nation of Turkey for its own call for a cease-fire in the
Israeli-Hamas conflict.
2. Both sides – the
State of Israel, and the armed resistance fighters attempting to protect the
Palestinians, as well as civilians protected by both groups – are guilty of
many of the same atrocities and war crimes, of which they are accusing each
other. Examples of such atrocities include targeting civilians, killing each
other’s babies, and calling for a genocide of their enemies. We are being baited into taking sides, and it has to stop, before we say something we regret and cannot take back.
3. The State of
Israel can defend itself. The United States has been sending more than $3
billion to that country every year for at least the past ten years. America
helped Israel build the Iron Dome missile defense system. We have done enough
already. Israel can defend itself, it has other allies besides the United
States, and further aid to Israel will only increase Israeli dependence upon
the U.S.. This is not our fight.
4. Nobody knows,
yet, whether the Israeli military, or a misfire by Hamas, was the cause of the
recent destruction of the Baptist Hospital in Gaza. There is so much confusion
and misinformation surrounding this incident, that the only way to be sure that
no more attacks take place, is to call for both sides to stop launching
attacks.
5. If you live by
the sword, then you will die by the sword. Everybody is putting themselves in
harm’s way, and blaming the other side for doing the same thing. Hamas is
humiliating its own people by accidentally firing bombs at its own people in
approximately 30 to 40 percent of the missile attacks it commits. The Israeli
Army has something called the Hannibal Directive, which excuses Israel allowing
its own people to get killed, as long as the fact that Israelis are dead can be
used to justify subsequent attacks that will achieve other more important
military objectives. And the United States is putting its own Marines and
soldiers in harm’s way, by sending two thousand troops to the battle front. U.S.
involvement only increases the chances that New York City or Washington, D.C.
could get targeted with a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb. Additionally, a million
Jews are gathered in each Haifa and Jerusalem, which could easily become the
target of large-scale weapons strikes; while some Jews believe that the Jews
were dispersed among the peoples of the Earth, by G-d, on purpose, in order to spread
Judaism to all the nations of the world, but also to keep the Jewish people
safe by avoiding concentrating them all in one location. Don’t put all your
eggs in one basket.
6. We don’t know
which side was the first to take a human life. Prior to last month, there was
no fighting in Israel since May 2023. As I stated in my previous article on
this topic, on September 22nd, or earlier, a Hamas militant launched
an incendiary device towards an I.D.F. soldier. That incendiary device killed
zero people. That casualty-free attack was an opportunity for the Israelis to
forgive. The Israelis passed on that opportunity, and instead launched an
attack which bore no reported casualties. However, it’s extremely unlikely –
with Israel’s advanced military technology – that this attack killed nobody;
and more likely that it did kill people, but that the deaths were not reported,
due to low sympathy for Palestinians in the Western media. The Jewish people
have every right to defend themselves – and even the right to kill, if
necessary, in order to do so, which doesn’t even violate the commandment
against murder – but it is possible that it was the State of Israel which
committed the first murder in this round of fighting; which, I repeat, began in
late September, not early October.
7. The U.S.
should not risk escalating this conflict. If the U.S. sends Marines to the Holy
Land, then eventually those troops will be fired-upon by Hamas. That will
likely lead to a wider conflict, in which Hezbollah and Iran, and other Muslim
nations, will join-in, followed by the close European allies of the United States
and the State of Israel. This will lead to World War III if the leaders of the
nations of the world do not call for an immediate cease-fire, and continue
calling for it – no matter who tries to break it, or how many times - until it
is achieved.
8. If this
conflict escalates, then it will become more likely that our elected
representatives will abandon their dedication to maintaining an all-volunteer
army, and will turn instead to reinstating registration for the draft,
reinstating the military draft (Selective Service) instead, and perhaps even
include women in that draft to fill gaps. The U.S. should not risk committing
young people to a war that they barely understand; young people whom were born decades after
the wider Israeli-Arab Conflict began. This would be extremely unfair to them,
and many of them would get killed, tearing families apart.
9. I don’t want
to spend my holiday season reading about people getting bombed, watching Gaza
getting flattened, watching Palestinians get exterminated, watching the Jews of
Israel get wiped off the map, watching a genocide of either side happen, or
watching World War III break out. There have been too many holiday seasons, in recent
years, that Israel and Palestine have spent bombing each other. Nobody wants to
spend their Christmas, Hanukkah, or Ramadan watching people die (except the
Military-Industrial Complex). We have already seen that happen, multiple times, and it isn't pretty.
10. America winning this war, or losing it, are not the only two options here. The fact that Americans have already died in Hamas attacks in Israel, shouldn't have to mean that more Americans die as well. We must learn the lesson of the Cold War and the film War Games: The only way to win is to not play the game. We must call for forgiveness, peace, and a cease-fire. Nobody wins in a nuclear war, and nobody achieves a total victory in a world war. We must be content with a draw. If we want
humanity to survive – this winter, or at all – then peace is the only option.
Peace, shalom,
salaam.
Written and published on October 18th, 2023.
