Delusion

As I predicted on the first day of hostilities, the Left’s anti-Israel bias is in full flower now that the response to over a year of rocket attacks enters its second week. In the deluded worldview of the Left (media, print commentators, and blogs) the tiny Jewish state attacked Hamas without provocation, or worse, rained terror purposely targeted at civilians. The far Left goes so far as to argue that Israel provoked the entire incident and is culpable for the entire conflict.

Consider the overwrought words of Uri Avnery in The Progressive:

It was impossible not to think about the tens of thousands of Gazan children who were hearing that sound at that moment, cringing with fright, paralyzed by fear, waiting for the bombs to fall.

Where was Avnery Gazan when 3,000 Hamas rockets rained down on “tens of thousands of Gazan Israeli children who were hearing that sound at that moment, cringing with fright, paralyzed by fear, waiting for the bombs rockets to fall.”

Oh, right, Hamas, a terrorist group that is sworn to destroy each and every one of those children and who considers them to be combatants, is “oppressed” and therefore not to be blamed for gross and obvious violations of international law. Never mind history, or facts, or charters, or policy positions—delusion reigns supreme.

But the Left goes far beyond unthinking support of terrorist thugs. It suggests that Israel provoked Hamas by keeping border crossings closed and “eliminating most sources of employment, pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation, stopping most hospitals from functioning, disrupting the supply of electricity and water.” Again facts don’t matter to Avnery. The border was closed because a de facto state of war exists between Hamas—the elected representative of the Gazans—and Israel. I guess it's too difficult for Avnery and all who think like him to recognize a simple reality. Let me state it very simply so that even the deluded can comprehend it:

Rockets flying across the border = closed borders
No rockets and a cessation of hostility = open borders

But that might still be too difficult to understand. How about this:

Israel unilaterally left Gaza, and the residents did nothing to build a viable proto-state. They were given hundreds of millions in aid; they were left operational factories and greenhouses, a viable, albeit bedraggled, infrastructure, and much more. And they trashed it. Worse, the Gazans elected Hamas who they clearly understood would initiate a perpetual state of war with Israel.

And now, after a year of provocation, Israel strikes back, the Gazans act as if they are the bereaved party. I don’t blame them for using a biased media to foster those bogus claims, but I do blame the Left for buying into them without any critical thinking. Then again, on this matter, there’s very little thinking, critical or otherwise, emanating from the Left.