A Last Warning…

Moments ago, three more rockets were fired at Israeli cities and Palestinians began writing that the air force is dropping leaflets. I have one that was dropped on Gaza when Elie was there almost exactly four years ago. It is in Arabic and with the winds of war and winter, the leaflet blew across the border to our troops.

It is in Arabic, a language I do not read. But I know what it says – it is a warning – a last warning. Move away from military sites. We have no choice – we are about to bomb them and if you are too close, you risk your lives. Unlike the Israeli army, which sets its bases (almost all of them) outside civilian areas (and if you want to tell me about the one in the center of Tel Aviv, I will tell you that it is first and foremost more of a diplomatic base than a military one and I’ll also tell you that when it was built so long ago, it wasn’t in the center of Tel Aviv, a city that continues to grow and expand.

Getting back to the leaflets – it is something that a civilized nation will do – to warn the civilians. Then again, were our enemies civilized, they would not choose to fight their war around the citizens. When Elie was in the Gaza War, his position was out in the “open fields” – far from civilians lest it draw rocket fire.

By contrast, yes, they sometimes fired at homes, mosques and schools because from these locations, came the rocket fire that started the war. It is a known fact that Palestinians hide most happily behind their wives and children, their elderly and their sick.

So there are often arsenals in mosques, launching sites from hospitals, explosives in the schools. The leaflets are very simple – a message to the Palestinian people. You have a choice, an obligation. If you love your family, you will move because your leadership and your fighters don’t care about you. They will hide behind you – don’t let them.

The leaflets have been dropped. From one mother to another – if you are near a rocket launching site, an arsenal, a terrorist training camp – move, leave, get away. Now.

We do not want to have you listed as a casualty – and in that, apparently, we care more than your own fathers, sons, husbands and leaders. If you die, they will parade your body around as a martyr of Allah…is that what you want?

I have to believe it is not. I have to believe that you love your children enough to get up and move away for a little while; until Hamas and the other terrorist organizations get smart enough to realize what they have failed to realize so far – no one wins in a war; but Israel will not, cannot lose.

Read the leaflet and get away. And take your sons with you. Don’t leave them to fight. It is not their fighting that the leaders of Gaza want, it is their martyrdom. Don’t raise your sons to be martyrs and perhaps, perhaps, someday there will be peace.

It won’t be today – today you’ve fired dozens of rockets at our citizens. Peace will not come today. But after almost 70 rockets in the last 24 hours, what might come, if you don’t move away, is any chance for you to ever see peace, to ever see your children grown.

Move away, the last warning has been issued. Soon, it will be too late to stop the response that any other nation would have made hours ago, days ago, months ago. Even Israel has a red line when it comes to Gaza rockets and we are fast approaching it.

1 Comment

  1. I am reminded of what Golda Meir said:

    Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.

    I pray for peace, for you, and for us all..

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