I have been struggling whether to write this article since last night. I knew I did not want to put it into my Newsweek column. Last weeks column was difficult enough to file. I am also working on another article for Newsweek that will not make many people happy, so I almost wrote the following for the Times of Israel, but even there I did not feel comfortable writing this so here it is on my little blog.
What spurred me to write this were the Tweets last night be Israelis including MK Herzog decrying that fact that the world was not doing enough for the those trapped in Aleppo. I replied that that might be true but what have we done? For the last few years as I hear our leaders talk about the holocaust and how the world did not do enough I have cringed. What gives us with the largest and most effective military in the Middle East the right to talk about what the world has not done- when the only thing we have done is give some medical aid to those who arrive at our border. Our Prime Minister is too afraid of his relationship with Putin to even condemn the indiscriminate Russian bombings of hospitals. I understand all the very good reasons why we should not intervene, why we did not even create a safe haven next to the Golan Heights. It was clearly not in our “interests”. When discussing with friends I get should our children risk their lives for people who hate us? Its all true but….
The but is that the Allies, in World war II had many legitimate reasons for not changing their war plans that were after all aimed at toppling Hitler. So it’s time for us to stop decrying the fact that the world did not do enough to save the Jews during the holocaust. They did not. And the world has not done enough to stop the murderous Assad regime with the help of the Iranians and Russians for killing his own people. They have not. But what did we do? We could have grounded the Syrian Air Force in five minutes, we could have saved thousands if not tens of thousands of lives, but it was not in our interests. None of us really wanted to risk our children or take the chance that Hezbollah would start firing missiles to save some Sunni Arabs who were being slaughtered. That is reality, and it’s not a very moral reality that we live in.
3 Responses
You have a point, but Israel is still a very vulnerable nation and needs to conserve its resources. The whole onus is on the USA,on president Obama. He was told by every general and every pundit to give help to the Syrian rebels years ago. The rebels, who only just now have surrendered , wanted aid not troops, but Obama would not give it. Now, after thousands of Syrian deaths and a Europe about to implode because of all the Arab refugees running all over it , is too far gone and Russia might as well take it over. What a horrible legacy he leaves.
I am a child survivor of the Holocaust. I became an orphan at the age of 8.
I survived because a wonderful Christian family risked their life to save mine.
The world stood by and did nothing for us. It is making me sick that the same
is happening in Syria, and again the world does nothing.
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