By Peter Polack

Peter Polack

Since 1948 the state of Israel has had several short wars with their neighbors that eventually led to long term rapprochement with most of them. However, this has not been the case with their nearest neighbors, the Palestinian enclaves of Gaza and the West Bank, with whom they have had continuous conflict. The latest conflagration has become an existential contest for the Palestinian homeland and an asymmetric joust for the latest terrorist group iteration claiming to represent a people often besieged and occasionally, the besiegers. Hamas is only the latest pretend, default, quasi government that arose from the ashes of Black September, Fatah and the PFLP. It is laughable that their are support protests for a group so awash in blood and mayhem hiding under the brittle sheet of the Palestinian people who have themselves been unable to  project a unified front to the world.

Perhaps the Palestinians are the only group in recent history to go backward from territorial and political advancement during an occupation, colonial or otherwise. Simply put, they have substantially less than before the mindless 7 October attack.

A bigger question would be who orchestrated the change in Hamas from throwing rocks to lobbing missiles into Israel. The usual suspects of Iran and Hezbollah may be a simplistic answer. The director(s) of the spotlight moving would be closer to the truth.

Hamas latest co-conspirators have been politicians, experienced military officials and naive Kibbutzim closest to the perilous borders with deadly neighbors. Videos have emerged of various Kibbutz security gates that more resemble the suburban enclaves of California with thin entry points that were unable to resist the most basic assault. Given the human proclivity for avoiding unpleasantness or the Ostrich Complex, it is unsurprising that the Kibbutznik embraced the faux security of safe rooms instead of a comprehensive defense to life in a virtual war zone. Reality bites.

This was eclipsed by the height of younger generation chutzpah in the music festival held only a few miles from the border breaks of Gaza by Hamas. Dancing with tigers.

The people of Ukraine have no capacity for the Kibbutz verisimilitude. They have been the subject of a grand invasion by Russia since 2014 while the world slept, only barely awakening for an attempt to eliminate the state of Ukraine in February 2022.Israel has been conspicuously absent as a major supporter of the besieged Ukrainians who are now more akin to the people of Gaza without the world howls of protest. Many countries who abstained from the UN vote against Russia now cry for peace, withdrawal and a cessation of hostilities by Israel. The Israeli response can be found in the Torquato Tasso poem, Jerusalem Delivered, for every drop of blood a sea of tears.

While the West vacillated on delivery of weapon systems to Ukraine, Israel had all that it needed sitting in storage for a rainy day, unhelpful to a Hamas rampage that washed the border Kibbutzim in blood.

Grateful Ukrainians, on the other hand, name their children after the US made Javelin in a recent conversion of the defense industry from dealers in death to saviors of the world. This has always been the case but sometimes desperation drives people to common sense. Every single employee of every single defense contractor supplying the Ukraine has had a hand in defending the free world.

Regrettably, the hundreds of young Israelis fleeing Hamas were from a country with one of the most technologically advanced military forces, albeit undeployed. Countries of the world facing similar or unrealized threats should adopt the Ukraine method, preparation first, deployment second.

Like Israel, the world has got to have a come to Jesus moment, as they say in West Texas. Every single politician in the USA and Hungary who opposes aid to Ukraine should be voted out of office. Former US President Lyndon B. Johnson once called upon Vietnamese boys to do the necessary fighting in Vietnam, well, Ukrainian boys, girls, men, women and babies are all dying in the worst atrocity since the Holocaust.

People should center their crowd funding on dollars for the new white knights with names like Rheinmetall, Saab and BAE systems to go around political malarkey. It is a small price to pay to prevent Big Hamas or Russia from destroying the world.

The present state of affairs is a continuum from the supposed academic enlightenment of non-alphabetical grades, non-exam grade support to retrospective bleaching of conquest in various forms. There are only winners and losers. A failure to embrace this concept will only lead to accelerated replacement of the human race with ostriches scrolling through their IPhones.

As the boxing referee warns at the start of each match, protect yourself at all times.

About the writer:

Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer in the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). Polack worked as a part-time reporter for Reuters News Agency in the Cayman Islands 2014-19. His work has been published in Small Wars Journal, Defence Procurement International, American Intelligence Journal, U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center magazine, Military Times, Foreign Policy News, EU Today, Radio Free Europe, VOA Portuguese, South Africa Times, Africa Monitor, Folha de Sao Paulo, NODAL Cultura, Caribbean Life, Jamaque Paradis, History Cooperative, INews Cayman, Jamaica Gleaner, Miami Herald, Reuters and The New York Times. His latest book entitled Soviet Spies Worldwide: Country by Country, 1940–1988 will be published by McFarland in 2022. The book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with nearly five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide. In April 2021 he completed Only the Young Shall Die by with Jack McCain USNR about raising the age of military enlistment.He is currently doing research on a curated collection entitled War In Pictures of almost 1,000 images throughout several conflicts over many centuries.