Words of the Week

Just a few of the memorable–and important–lines that I’ve discovered over the past few days:

From David Horovitz:
“Just three days ago, my colleague Mitch Ginsburg wrote the following: ‘Haim Yellin, the head of the Eshkol Regional Council, told The Times of Israel, standing outside a tunnel discovered several months ago, that many residents in the region are so scarred by the prospect of a tunnel attack that they hear the phantom scratching of shovels when they close their eyes at night.’ Well, now we know that it was not the ‘phantom scratching of shovels’ they were hearing. It was the scratching of shovels.” (“Hushed, Determined Israel in a War ‘for Our Home,” The Times of Israel)

From Michael Oren:
“Unwittingly or not, the international media is complicit in Hamas’s plan. While some may think they help the Palestinians by highlighting their plight, in reality, the journalists only worsen it. They effectively absolve Hamas of culpability for using Gaza’s population as a human shield, of stealing its aid money to buy munitions and dig fortified tunnels with the sole purpose of killing Israelis, and of contributing nothing to Gaza’s welfare.” (“Hamas Media Strategy Relies on Death of Civilians,” CNN.com)

From Thane Rosenbaum:
“Surely there are civilians who have been killed in this conflict who have taken every step to distance themselves from this fast-moving war zone, and children whose parents are not card-carrying Hamas loyalists. These are the true innocents of Gaza. It is they for whom our sympathy should be reserved. The impossibility of identifying them, and saving them, is Israel’s deepest moral dilemma.” (“About Those ‘Innocent’ Palestinian Civilians,” The Wall Street Journal.)

From Fania Oz-Salzberger, the daughter of famed Israeli author Amos Oz:

And from Rabbi Eric Yoffie:
“The issue was never ‘proportionality’; it is the suffering and dying of too many Arabs and Jews. And while there is much that is complicated about the Middle East, ending the violence in Gaza is not complicated. Hamas needs to halt the missile attacks and provide credible assurances to Israel and the world that they will not be resumed. If the rockets stop, quiet can come tomorrow. And tomorrow is not soon enough.” (“The Bizarre Moral Criticism Against Israel,” Time.com)

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