Disproportionately Evil

I had plain forgotten that at some point in the distant past I tried to write this blog. I did keep it up for a while but abandoned it eventually.

So this is me, nine years later posting again. Or rather, posting again something that I last wrote in 2012.

Back then, I experienced for the first the time the threat of a rocket attack from Gaza. This is what I wrote in a post called "Raining Cats 'n Dogs":

You've heard the expression "herding cats?" How about "raining cats and dogs?" 

Picture the following scenario as though it were happening to you.

You are home with a sore throat, and then all kinds of crap breaks loose:

A siren. Loud, so loud. Going up and down. Unused as you are to something like that it takes you a second or two to recognize it for what it is: this is your wake-up call, your psychotic neighbors to the south are trying to kill you and you have only a few seconds to get to the bomb shelter in your basement. 

Here's a rough sketch of what happens:

1. The mother of all adrenalin rushes hits you.
2. Get wife moving towards the basement.
3. Get kid home from school with a sore throat moving towards the basement.
4. Argue with wife, briefly, whether we really can afford the time to take the cat and the dog to the basement with us.
5. Lose the argument.
6. Find said cat and dog are sitting just outside the front door, looking a little shook up.
7. Herd said cat and dog to the basement. Easier said than done, the very large dog has never been to the basement and is distinctly disinclined to go down, hence the "herding" part.
8. Physically shove cat and dog down the stairs. Wife and kid are, thankfully, already there. Said shoved cat and dog more or less fall on family, like rain.
9. Wait in the basement for about 15 seconds. Feel, more than hear two strong booms.
10. Ask one another "is that it? Can we leave now?"
11. Check with the two other kids whether everyone is ok.
12. Get the shakes from the post-adrenalin rush.
13. Rest.
14. Post experience to Facebook in the hope that this will paint a picture for our friends abroad.
15. Go have lunch.

Much has changed since then: I no longer have a dog, I have two. Two cats as well. Also, I'm no longer on Facebook, that ugly thing. 

But the most salient change is that this was not a single rocket attack, it was dozens, day after day after night after time after time. Relentless and murderous. 

Evil.

And before you jump to conclusions--thinking that I write this to justify the Israeli response--hold your horses. Allah knows that I couldn't have a lower opinion of the Crime Minister and his band of bootlickers. Nope, this is not about the IDF's response.

It is also not about our neighbors in Gaza (yes, yes, I know that Gal Gadot created a bit of controversy by referring to them as "neighbors". What else should we call them? Those of us that wish to live with them as neighbors? But this isn't about them, or not directly about them.

This is about Hamas, the gangsters that rule Gaza. The war criminals that use people in Gaza as shields and people in Israel as targets. If you're counting, that's two war crimes wrapped into one. Shooting from within a civilian population in order to avoid combat, using civilians as shields is clearly a crime. 

Shooting rockets at civilians is an additional war crime. 

There are many reasons why this latest round of fighting broke out when it broke out. We should discuss them, for sure. Later. The minute the gangsters in Gaza stop lobbying rockets trying to kill my kids.

I heard on the news last night that Hamas were asking (demanding?) a cease-fire, and I thought, "great, we'll be able to sleep through the night maybe." Then I heard the rest of the report. A cease-fire, yes, conditioned on Israel stopping the evictions in Jerusalem (have I mentioned how astonishingly idiotic our current government is?). So this isn't a cease-fire negotiation, it's blackmail. "Do as we say, and no one else gets hurt."

These are not freedom fighters, these are mobsters and despots that rule through fear over a million people.