What would you do?

I don’t know Gregg Popovich, the head coach of San Antonio Spurs. I learned to like his personality a lot from his work and his interviews. He recently said: “I wish I had an answer but all our hearts just die when we see the horror that Hamas committed and then we feel the same when we see the bombs dropping killing children and civilians in Palestine”.

Angelina Jolie, who is a humanitarian was even more blunt: “This is the deliberate bombing of a trapped population who have nowhere to flee. Gaza has been an open-air prison for nearly two decades and is fast becoming a mass grave.”

Top such quotes with a lot of recent antisemitism statements, and I’m sure that a lot of my non-Israeli friends here are even more exposed to this painful debate.

This post may summarize a few important facts which can help to shed some information, from my point of view. The key point to ask is: WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF A GROUP ATTACKED YOUR FAMILY?

• What would you do Angelina if a specific group would come from a nearby LA neighborhood, enter your house, abuse your children for hours, rape, slaughter anyone they see, and take some babies as hostages? And then go hide in their houses, surrounding themselves with their innocent family and hostages. Would you just say: “they must have reasons to do that so let’s talk with them” or would you expect the police/special forces to get your family out of there at all costs and ensure they will not do the same ever again?
• To Gregg I would say: You are absolutely right. Every human should feel terrible for any child or innocent civilian who is killed in any conflict. I and most Israelis feel the same way. But – what would you do differently?
• The biggest mistake some of my western friends are making is believing that all cultures think like us. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, giving Palestinians an opportunity to show they can build a prosperous state side by side to Israel. President Bush put all his weight to create “elections” in Gaza, believing that Palestinians think like Americans. Results were clear:
• In 2006, the Palestinian people in Gaza elected Hamas who immediately killed or exiled the prior Palestinian authority members.
• They destroyed all the beautiful houses and expensive agriculture infrastructure left to them by the evacuated Israeli settlements
• They used all the resources they got from Qatar, UN, and other Western countries against developing Gaza for its people. They used it all for building their terrorist organization, launching attacks on Israel in never ending rounds of conflicts, with the worst barbaric terrorist attack on October 7th, 2023. WHAT WOULD YOU DO? Just keep on trying to talk with them and find if they want peace?
• Did you consider the option that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the people behind them DO NOT SEEK PEACE?
• Check the mass civilian celebration in Gaza and many Islamic regions after the terrorists’ attack on Oct-7th. This is not the reaction of people who are looking for peace. What human minds celebrate a violent mass murder?
• Check the Hamas charter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter ). It does not call to fight until Israel and Palestinians will live peacefully side by side. It calls to demolish Israel!

That’s the key message to those who condemn Israel right now: Gaza people live in “open air prison” because it’s their choice! They choose to keep on fighting until they will conquer all Israel (“from the river to the sea”) for the price of poverty, Israeli retaliation after each attack, and freedom in general. It's an Islamic religious agenda.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO? Just let them slaughter all Israelis as they did to 1400, mostly innocent civilians in the cruelest way? Or, would you do anything possible to avoid civilian casualties’, as the IDF does, but seek to root this evil from this planet and hopefully find Palestinians who are seeking to finally live peacefully in two separate states? Try to work with leaders who really want prosperity to their people.

Saying all that, I have a lot of criticism to the current Israeli government. Israel could have done a much better work to help the moderate Palestinians and fight the Hamas movement. It's the only long term solution. But nothing changes the facts mentioned above. The best answer to all the extreme liberals who call for “free Palestine” without knowing the facts, or the likes of Angelina Jolie and Gregg Popovich, who I’m sure mean well: WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Opinions shared in this article are my own and are not related to my profession.