RUTHFULLY YOURS

After October 7, around the world (except amongst Hamas and its most open supporters), there was a moment of pity for Israel. However, once Israel stood up against her abuser, the pity ended, and the unprincipled victim shaming began. Although Iran seems, at least temporarily, to have backed down after Israel’s airstrike yesterday, the normal Iran enablers were immediately outraged that the Israeli worm dared turn.

Here’s the chronology: For decades, Iran has been funding Hamas and Hezbollah, which have engaged in non-step terrorist attacks from Hamas and rocket attacks from Hezbollah. It recently emerged that a general from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (“IRGC”) helped mastermind October 7. Israel engaged in a targeted strike against the general who was meeting at an IRGC office in Syria.

Iran retaliated with a barrage of rockets, missiles, and drones, many aimed at Jerusalem. It was only because of Israel’s superb defensive systems that Iran’s strike was unsuccessful. Israel was able to protect her citizens, who suffered no casualties, along with her civilian and military infrastructure. Ironically, one of the things she protected was the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s most sacred sites and a target, intentional or not, of Iran’s strike.

Within minutes of Iran’s attack, those who fear Iran and those who hate Israel (not always the same people, but there’s lots of overlap), instantly urged Israel to suck it up and do nothing. The fact that she survived Iran’s strike, which was an act of war, was a “victory,” they said, and this was a message that came from the White House, the UN, and European leaders. Leftists and a handful of Republicans across the media and the internet chimed in. This tweet is representative:

That Israel’s meekly taking what Iran dished out would turn her into a sitting duck for other Iranian strikes was irrelevant to these urgings.

Israel, however, refused to accept the role of sitting duck. Last night, she launched an attack against Iran. It appears that she targeted myriad sites immediately adjacent to Iran’s nuclear facilities. The message was clear: We’ve chosen not to strike into Iran’s heart, but we can if we want to. Currently, it seems that Iran got the message—as bullies often do when their victims finally push back.

However, before Iran backed down from the game of chicken that it initiated, the naysayers were right back at it, castigating Israel for daring to respond to Iran’s acts of war.

NBC’s foreign correspondent, Matt Bradley, emoted that Israel’s delicately calibrated strike “could be a deeply, deeply destabilizing move by the Israelis, and again, not just for the Iranians, but for the entire region…”

At the relatively conservative (for the UK) Telegraph, there was one article entitled “Israel has just handed Iran a major victory,” while another asked, “Why did Israel attack Iran and could it spark all-out war?”

A former Obama staffer had the same take (and you can bet that his one-time White House buddies agree):

What we’re seeing, of course, is part of a pattern: Hamas and Hezbollah, along with their other Iran-funded partners, may attack Israel, but Israel must not respond. When she does respond, as she did after October 7, she instantly goes from acceptable victim to unacceptable bully.

This operates not just at the macro level of Israel but at the micro level of all Jews. In London, a Jewish man was booted from the streets because his mere presence before pro-Hamas activists was a provocation:

And suddenly, I got it. I understood the world’s reaction. Years ago, a friend of mine and her husband were squabbling constantly. They agreed to go to couple’s counseling, and what emerged—and both my friend and her husband agreed—was that he would make statements that triggered her, and she would push back. The therapist, not unreasonably, suggested that the husband stop voicing every negative thought he had about his wife.

To both my friend’s and the therapist’s surprise, the husband refused to temper his behavior. The fights that were destroying their relationship he said, had nothing to do with him. That is, it wasn’t anything he said; it was that his wife insisted on answering back. If she’d just be quiet in the face of his words, they’d have marital peace.

My friend left him not long after that, and rightly so. Within a marriage, the attitude that one side gets to dish it out and the other side must take it is classic spousal abuse. But that same abusive attitude can exist on a national or cultural scale. Those hostile to Israel and supportive of Iran (along with Hamas and Hezbollah) feel that Israel is the problem. If she’d just sit and take it—if she’d accept that she deserves the abuse—there’d be peace in the region. This is pure victim-blaming.

However, unlike my friend, Israel cannot walk away from this relationship. As the rising tide of antisemitism around the world shows, there is no place for Jews. Moreover, Israel is no beaten-down spouse running away from the fight. As her blistering yet careful attack on Iran shows, while she has no desire to get down in the mud with Iran’s filthy, bloody tactics, she can and will if she must.