MEDITATIONS-THEY KILLED BABIES

Unfortunately, I’ll be going dark with this one, right after I own up to a major error.

First, this is about the horrors of October 7. Hamas, a terrorist group that runs Gaza City, a Palestinian city on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, launched a complex attack on several towns around the borders to Gaza. 1,400 dead and over 3,000 injured later, Israel stands on the brink of a major regional war, with Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran. The US has two carrier groups in the Mediterranean. That’s the big, geopolitical picture.

Let’s zoom in a bit, to a kibbutzim called Kfar Aza. This kibbutzim is directly east of Gaza City. A kibbutzim is a communal village, a manner of living that date back to Israel’s founding. For those raised in a kibbutzim, their home represented comfort, security. That changed in Kfar Aza on October 7.

Hamas militants stormed into the kibbutzim, and forever changed the hearts of Israelis.

People who know me might describe me as nice, easy-going, friendly, able to get along with everyone. For that, I blame my wife, Robin. This angel has certainly appealed to my better nature. I’ve overcome a terrible temper, one that has seen me put a person in the hospital, and she helped me become the award-winning educator I became. She has definitely smoothed my rough edges.

If you are a disciple of Carl Jung, my archetype is Guardian. Much of what I have done as an adult was to protect others. The Army Reserves, coaching, teaching, administration, school safety. I’m always looking out for the safety of others. So while my temper is buried, I still travel some sometimes dark roads in my mind, trying to get tender-hearted educators to take safety seriously.

In 2013, ISIS became a thing on the world stage. I watched the videos of the hideous things they did to other human beings, and they touched the dark in my heart. All I felt for them was utter contempt. In all my days I never, truly wished for the death of others. Until those turds. Nothing like watching a man burned to death in a cage to get you to understand the depths of evil in men’s hearts.

This led to me violating one of my own personal and professional rules. 48 hours. When something happens, wait 48 hours before you start opining on it. The initial news that comes out of an event is not always correct, and 48 hours lets the actual information develop. This is important in the field of school safety, as decisions made emotionally can cost a lot of money initially, and later in litigation. A story made the rounds after Sandy Hook of a teacher who faced the shooter and saved her kids. Nope. Parkland, FL. The shooter pulled the fire alarm and got all the students out into the hallways. Nope. Wait for information to develop. Safe Havens International prides itself on an even, risk-based approach to school safety that requires study, study and more study.

The reports coming in from Kfar Aza were horrific, and I felt myself getting incensed. Then came the report of beheaded babies. I was over it. I won’t recount the profanities I uttered throughout the house, but it turned both of my grandsons into teenagers on the spot, it was that salty. I texted Robin that 40 babies were beheaded. I was ready to kit up and go slag some animals. In my mind.

What I actually saw was a CBS report, “Weiss told CBS News that more than one of the Israeli soldiers who first reached Kfar Aza reported finding “beheaded children of varying ages, ranging from babies to slightly older children,” along with adults who had also been dismembered.

Yossi Landau, the head of operations for the southern region of Zaka, Israel’s volunteer civilian emergency response organization, told CBS News he saw with his own eyes children and babies who had been beheaded.”

Now, to be sure, a single beheading is horrible, and I hate having to think that one beheading is better than 40 babies, but wisdom wins out. We need to operate on what we know. A person who wants to quibble over the number has definitely lost sight of the bigger picture. Demons on earth were torturing and killing innocents. The manner which they did it was disgusting, and I am past caring whether it was 1 or 40. Anything above zero is not acceptable.

I watched various news agencies, CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera. They all mentioned the beheadings, then the story…went away. The counter-push was on. Despite the number of people I saw recounting what they saw, it soon became “apparent” that the beheadings story was a hoax. Except for all the survivors who said otherwise, including some footage from Hamas fighters themselves. Hamas kidnapped men, women and children, they raped women and children, often in front of their friends and family. It was truly ISIS-like. The video of the Hamas thug dragging a woman out of the back of his vehicle into the back seat, with a mass of blood between her legs, and Hamas cemented themselves on my shit list.

My shit list is metaphorical, of course. I’m 59-years old, and Crohn’s Disease and years of drug therapies have given me the body of a 70-year old. I will sit on my front porch and yell at Hamas to get off my lawn, but I ain’t doing much else. But it does put me in the mood to see all the worst happen to them. That I won’t lose any sleep over. Those jerks use human shields. They take materials meant for the Palestinian people and turn them into weapons of war. Their official charter has spelled out, in black and white, that their primary goal is the eradication of the Jewish people. Not a Palestinian state for the people they were elected to lead, but genocide.

What’s bothered me more than that? The number of US citizens who are supporting Hamas. Nothing makes my heart hurt as much as free people who are publicly supporting a terrorist organization that rapes women and children, has gone door-to-door murdering peaceful, innocent people, and beheaded children.

War sucks. It sucks what it does to people. But it doesn’t suck as bad as Hamas. Screw those guys. My hope is that one day soon, Hamas’ lifeless bodies will join those of ISIS on the dung heap of history. Hamas says they celebrate death. So did ISIS.

I celebrate life.

Shalom, my Jewish brothers and sisters.