Another solution

The Middle East stands on the edge of conflagration. The world has arrived at a most dangerous hour. The American people are unprepared for this emergency at a moral, political and emotional level.

Our society has been under siege from a cancerous self-indulgence that splays forth from a hundred million curated Instagram feeds, a vast “anger-tainment” industry that has merged with a “Trump industrial/media complex” that is as toxic and rancid as the man himself.  Vast percentages of Americans have lost the ability to distinguish reality from delusion, or tell the difference between a truth and lie. Astounding numbers are wholly ignorant of American history and the ideas and ideals of the country, while being programmed by a ceaseless stream of dogma, idiocy and propaganda.

The American political system is deeply corrupted — staggeringly and shockingly so. Barely covered this week was the shocking revelation that the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was charged as an unregistered foreign agent for the government of Egypt. Jim Jordan, a man who covered up a sexual assault/abuse scandal involving the Ohio State University, is deeply and profoundly unfit. Like his fellow constitutional arsonist and vandal Matt Gaetz, he is a juvenile clown. In fact, he is precisely the type of extremist loon around which Bibi Netanyahu built his incompetent government. The result, of course, is now at hand.

The American media is as broken as American politics, and in any given moment, maybe more so. So much of the coverage is exploitive, morally obtuse, wrong and shallow. Some of it is despicable and much of it childlike with its insistence of coddling the American people from the realities in front of them.

There are some things to prepare for in the days ahead. This is a serious moment in world history and the danger of direct American involvement in a broader Middle East war against Iran is very close. I will do my best to explain what is happening and why so much of what you are hearing on cable news is utter nonsense, and at times, deeply immoral. Many CNN anchors seem to think that being sad about tragedies on-air and “wish-casting” for everyone to just get along is journalism. It’s not. Of course, there are the always superb Dana Bash, Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Nic Robertson, Clarissa Ward and Christiane Amanpour, but so much of the rest looks like a cross between the Ricki Lake and Sally Jesse Raphael shows — silly, banal and obtuse.

Over and over again, responsibility for Palestinian lives in Gaza is being assigned to the Israeli Defense Force, as opposed to the Hamas killers who have sentenced so many of them to death. Hamas is using the Palestinian civilian population as human shields and hostages. They are as utterly indifferent to Palestinian life as they are to Jewish life. This is ISIS. It is a death cult.

A great humanitarian crisis has begun. The nations that are most responsible for exacerbating it are the supposed allies of the Palestinian people.

The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of the Gaza Strip and advised the civilian population to move south. Here is the map of Gaza:

The Egyptian government must open the border at Rafah, and allow the Palestinian people safe entry.

The Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, Quatar and UAE — some of the wealthiest countries on Earth — could easily afford the costs of the massive humanitarian project at hand. More than one million civilians will need to be housed, fed and cared for.

The Gaza Strip will be mostly destroyed in the coming weeks because of Hamas and its existential threat against Israel. Hamas must be eradicated through terrible violence. This is the nature of war.

When the war ends the question of what will happen to Gaza will be front and center. It deserves fresh thinking.

Perhaps consideration should be given by Israel to transferring sovereignty to Saudi Arabia or the UAE. They can run Gaza and rebuild it. They can build a modern society that is decent and at peace. They can have a Mediterranean port, and Israel can have peace. The hypocrisy and emptiness of the Arab nations for the cause of the Palestinian people has always been a tragedy. Now it will sentence many to death.

There is another issue at hand. Did Hamas have a strategy? What if the strategy was to provoke an invasion to inflame world opinion against Israel as a prelude to a massive Hezbollah strike on the northern border. This would open a second front, potentially overwhelming the Iron Dome system, destabilizing Arab governments and quickly bringing the United States into the war at the exact moment MAGA extremists are trying to choke Ukraine off from the weapons they need to keep Putin from expanding his war to the next European country. Think about that the next time you see a smirking Matt Gaetz yukking it up on CNN.

The best that can be hoped for in this moment is that the savagery of war will be short and decisive. There is nothing that can prevent it, and much that could expand it.

Remember this: what will escalate this war is moral obtuseness about its cause and confusion about the nature of evil. Evil must be confronted and destroyed. Hamas has crossed a line into a space where it can no longer exist.

Pray for the innocents. They are always wars’ first victims. This war was begun by Hamas. It will end when Israel has destroyed it. Let us hope that it happens quickly. Always remember that when the UN condemns Israel it is because much of the world hates the Jews so much that they would rather kill their own to get them. The state of Israel cannot permit this. In order for Israel to live, Hamas must die.