627 Rockets – @Northerntomcat and the Evil of Silence

That’s the number of rockets that were fired at Israel in the year 2011. That comes to a bit under 2 rockets per day – every day, for the entire year. Some months, there were very few rockets. One month, there was only 1. Other months, dozens, even more than a hundred.

As expected, the typical response came through very quickly…

How incredibly lame that @Northerntomcat doesn’t condemn the rocketfire but rather wants to belittle it. Well, yeah, they shot 627 rockets, but since 627 people didn’t die from those attacks, let’s just forget about them, okay? I mean, sure, people were terrorized, children frightened, parents frantic to locate their children, but we need a way to negate this violence and so we focus not on the atrocity of firing 627 rockets at over 1 million people, but the fact that those firing it missed.

I can point to Daniel Viflic, a 16-year-old boy who was killed when Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired a Kornet anti-tank missile at a school bus in the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council.

I can point to August 10th,  when a rocket fired at a Jewish religious seminary in Ashdod injured 10 people, two of them seriously and all but destroyed the yeshiva.

I can point to 38-year-old Yossi Shoshan of Ofakim, who was rushing home on August 20, when he was hit by a Grad rocket fired at Beersheba, leaving behind a wife who was in her ninth month of pregnancy.

I can point to a father of four who was killed in another attack, and others hurt, devastated, terrified. I can point to destruction and fear, but really, why bother? @Northerntomcat with all of 22 followers isn’t interested in facts.

@Northerntomcat lives in Canada, far from the Middle East and even farther from any sense of reality or justice. Tell me, how many rockets were fired at Canada this year? Do we really measure violence only by success? Is it okay to attempt to murder someone so long as you don’t succeed? To attempt to rape someone, so long as you fail?

If there is a single reason beyond the culture that is Gaza why there is no peace in the Middle East, I would say we have discovered it. Those who allow the Arabs to fire rockets and do not demand they stop – send a clear message that it is acceptable to terrorize so long as you don’t manage to succeed to well and if you do, well…oops.

My only other thought is that @Northerntomcat is steeped in her/his hatred of Israel (and likely Jews) and likely mourns each missile that does not maim and kill. Terror is not enough, apparently.

And so, as a final message to @Northerntomcat, I will leave you with one thought – you and others like you are the very reason why we must have Israel. It was your type who stood quietly when the Nazis marched…unless of course, you were wearing one of those black shirts. It was you who stood on the sidelines in silence – unless it was you raising your arm to salute.

It was you and yours who have encouraged the violence and helped perpetuate the horrors of the Middle East by ignoring the horrors and injustices, by saying it’s okay if you kill a little, if you try but fail.

How truly sad, how truly evil.

1 Comment

  1. Well said, Paula.

    When I first read NTC’s tweet:

    “how many died from those 627 rockets”

    my first thought was

    “before I answer that, let me ask you — do you have an “acceptable” number in mind???”

    I suspect that if NTC lived in, say south LA, and he had his neighborhood riddled with AK-47 bullets in drive-by shootings, that he wouldn’t decide if that was criminal or not) based on the number of neighbors killed!

    What a moron…

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