Searching for peace, finding no peace
It’s hard to know what to say this week, because it’s all too obvious or too terrifying or simply too sad.
As if the war Hamas started wasn’t enough, as if the ongoing disaster in Gaza wasn’t enough, as if the antisemitism at home and around the world wasn’t enough, and as if the hatred and division and rancid polarization here at home weren’t enough — hatred and division and rancid polarization that the most Pollyannaish among us must be finding hard to overlook, although I wouldn’t know because I am not that Pollyanna — now Israel is at war with Iran.
Israel’s attack on Iran seems to have been pure genius. To my entirely untutored eye, it seems to be similar to its brilliant attack on Hezbollah’s cellphones and pagers last September — entirely surprising and based on extraordinary intelligence — but ratcheted up infinitely past it. And it does have some echoes of the much smaller scale but equally surprising attack that Ukraine made against Russia when it Trojan-horsed drones into Russian territory at the beginning of the month, striking strategically.
But this was on a far bigger scale. It is, aside from everything else, both audacious and wildly creative.
It also brings to mind some of the parallels between Israel and Ukraine. Both are smaller countries in the shadows of larger ones. Yes, Ukraine objectively speaking is massive, but it is dwarfed by its bête noire, its twisted, evil, overgrown twin, Russia. Israel is tiny, objectively speaking, and as the only Jewish state it is physically insignificant compared to its Muslim neighbors. Both Ukraine and Israel, lacking brawn, use brains. And both Ukraine and Israel try to target their attacks on their enemies, hitting civilian targets when they can’t help it (and yes, it’s easy to say that from the security of the American Northeast) but working hard not to. That’s in sharp contrast to their enemies, who hit civilian targets on purpose, because terrorizing those enemies they do not slaughter is the point.
As we watch what happens in Israel, we hope and pray and yearn for the safe, sane survival of all Israelis, and of all innocents everywhere. It’s an unlikely dream, but a necessary one.
Am Yisrael chai.
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