Webster’s Dictionary defines “sophomoric” as “overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed.” This fairly describes Israel’s bitter critics who, as always, denounced Israel’s most recent attempt to stop Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas from murdering more of its civilians, at least for a couple of days or so.
The two heavily armed groups, recognized by the international community as Iranian-funded terrorist enterprises that have vowed to violently eliminate Israel, have carried out nearly 300 separate attacks on Israelis in the last 12 months alone. These have killed over 50 Israelis and injured hundreds more just since last July Fourth. One of the principal launching pads for these attacks is Jenin, located on the West Bank, which has become one large manufacturing facility for missiles and bombs, and a staging ground for the rocketing, shooting, bombing, stabbing and car-ramming of Israeli civilians, all intended to kill or, failing that, maim innocent souls.
One might imagine that it would be commonly understood that Israel cannot simply permit this to go on ad infinitum. But evidently there are those who do not in fact understand it. The Palestinian Authority, which professes to want an independent Palestinian state despite having repeatedly rejected one, is incapable of governing Jenin, which it nominally controls.
Riven by clan warfare and rife with corruption, the Palestinian Authority is a hot mess.
That leaves Israel with two options. Option 1 is for it to do nothing to stop its civilians from being murdered at will. This is the option of choice of the terminally sophomoric, the Blame-Israel-No-Matter-What crowd, who constitute a booming if not wholly intelligible cottage industry. It is not, however, the ideal option for Israel, which, all things considered, would prefer not to have its civilians blown to bits, shot, stabbed or rammed to death.
That would appear to leave Option 2, which is to try to stop those committing murder from committing murder. This does seem like a no-brainer. But there is a certain set indisposed to use their heads when it comes to Israel. So, when Israeli troops finally entered the weapons factory that is Jenin last week to try to slow down Murder, Inc., the predictable crowd proclaimed the predictable things. Amidst all the idiocy it wasn’t easy to rank the most untethered comments, but the top prize surely went to the British Broadcasting Corporation anchor who alleged that “Israeli forces are happy to kill children.”
A close second was commentator Peter Beinart, whose take on Islamic Jihad and Hamas murdering innocents was that “The fundamental problem is that Palestinians lack the most basic rights.” No, it isn’t. It was Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas himself who explained Palestinian leadership’s rejection of a Palestinian state to The Washington Post thus: “In the West Bank we have a good reality. We are living a good life.” And the attacks by these groups have nothing to do with “rights.” They have to do with the express pledge to eradicate Israel, full stop. This makes Beinart something of a fraud-peddler, albeit with no shortage of customers.
The bronze went to Squad members Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar, who called Israel’s efforts to protect its civilians a “pogrom.” Sure it is. The dismantling of missile factories, weapon storage depots and IEDs planted under civilian roads is a “pogrom.”
Now, Israel’s current coalition government is comprised of some miserable characters — autocrats, fanatics and charlatans. Their plan to jettison an independent judiciary deserves every bit of the opprobrium it has generated both within Israel and without.
But those who dismiss the self-defense-based entry into Jenin as the expression of right-wing ideology don’t know what they are talking about. It had the backing of the entire spectrum of Israeli society, which is plenty sick of seeing their grieving countrymen at funerals. It was, as opposition leader Yair Lapid put it, “a justified operation.”
Still, there are a whole lot of sophomores out there, with a whole lot of megaphones. You can only hope that at some point they will graduate to something a little bit fairer.
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