Israel and its apologists need your American love. Don’t be fooled by the world-class military, the ethnic cleansing, air strikes, anti-Arab legislation, arms trafficking, history of invasions or hundreds of dead kids in Gaza. Israel is fragile. Hyper-sensitive. A bubble-boy of a nation. Because if criticism of any sliver of any teensy fleck of its always-justifiable behavior were taken seriously, you might withhold that military and diplomatic support.
So murmur tenderly in Israel’s ear: “I believe you, darling. You have no agenda. You don’t settle or occupy. You don’t want any more land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. You just want peace and quiet and a little tribal purity. Is that so wrong?”
Be gentle. Sigh when Israel’s defenders decry the tunnels from Gaza. Don’t say, “But, dears, prisoners tunnel out. When their boundaries are sealed and they can’t export their products or visit family or be visited or fish in the sea or fly in the air or use the scholarships from well-meaning foreign universities or just sail away, prisoners dig tunnels.” Comfort her (yes, Binyamin Netanyahu uses the feminine pronoun for his nuked-up nation). Assure her there’s no correlation, none, between the tunnels and the no-go zone Israel has long enforced, lethally, hundreds of yards deep into Gaza, depriving the narrow strip of vital farmland. When Israel disrespects a border, it’s just … different.
And when Israel woefully laments, “We gave them Gaza as a gift,” pat her hand. Don’t mention how Israel’s own leadership said it was just too expensive to guard the privileges of 8,000 settlers among 1.6 million Palestinians. Or that Gaza is where Israel has dumped exiled Palestinians for decades, hoping Egypt, or somebody, would take responsibility for them. Or that when Gaza (and the West Bank) voted Hamas candidates into the nascent Palestinian parliament, Israel arrested the winners, effectively ending the legislature. It was still a lovely peace offering, sealing Gaza up, making it all cozy like that.
Also, be kind while Israel and her advocates bemoan the “terrible things they make us do” when Gaza’s militants “hide among civilians.” Sympathize. An unscrupulous enemy, concealed in their own homes! Surely, in the most densely populated place on earth, there’s someplace where the Palestinian “army” can come out, form ranks and fight like men. They’re obviously so scared of Israel’s jets, tanks, artillery, warships and drones that they crowd into urban space. And please don’t compare that to the Kirya, Israeli army headquarters, right there in downtown Tel Aviv, soon to be joined by Israel’s tallest office and residential towers — a place defense officials expect to be a target in any war with an actual country.
And those Gaza rockets, fired by reckless amateurs. Those homemade projectiles Israel shoots out of the sky. They could’ve hit anybody, Israel’s friends insist. Please agree Israel would never act so crudely. Its precision-guided explosives kill only whoever’s in or near an apartment building or hospital or UN shelter (500 Gaza children so far). Like in Gaza in 2012 and 2008-09 (900 civilians, plus 165 policemen killed the first day) and in Beirut in 2006 (860 civilians) and 1982 (many more).
Listen, with a cease-fire, soothe delicate Israel with a little humor. Something like “stop bombing permanently, reduce your maximalist intentions and negotiate arrangements that let Gaza live as ordinarily as you demand for yourself.”
Which is funny, of course, because Israel only plays a zero-sum game.