Dear Natalie Portman, and the rest of the World,
You know what really bothers me?
When people expect Israel to be a perfect angel (aka sitting duck), never use violence, never kill people by accident even if their opponent is on a battlefield and their comrades are trying to kill you, hold Israel to higher standards than any other country even those who don’t face similar threats constantly.
When I hear people say, “I hold Israel to higher standards cause I’m a Jew and it’s my country,” I roll my eyes so hard they move out the back of my head. Then I guess this means you love Israel to death then, because morality puts you at a huge tactical and military disadvantage, especially if your opponent does not share your moral standards. Israel has to juggle being “the most moral army in the world” and doing what it takes to ward off invaders and sometimes it’s mutually exclusive. I would rather us be slightly immoral and alive and have a state than moral and dead thankyouverymuch. And guess what? Most of those virtue signallers – and that’s exactly what they are (I know cause I used to be one before I moved here) don’t have to deal with the consequences of us being sitting ducks. Israelis do, and thousands have died as a result of actions to prevent civilian casualties, especially given that Palestinian militants frequently dress as civilians to fool us (and the world) into thinking they are.
So really, enough about Israel’s morality and let her do what she needs to do (or thinks she needs to do at the time). Seriously, who do you think you are that you know better than a trained IDF soldier? Soldiers from all nations make mistakes and kill the wrong people all the time, (and Israel does it a lot less than average, I mean 17 dead out of a swarm of 30,000, many of whom were armed, under a thick cloud of tire smoke is no less than extremely impressive) and it’s hard to make heat of the moment decisions under such stressful situations – but it’s better than having no soldiers at all. Nobody is perfect. Yes, every death is a tragedy. But I have far less sympathy for someone who tries to invade the Israeli border among those with weapons, blaming Israel for stuff their own elected Hamas government is at fault for, than those who are sitting in their houses minding their own business. There, I said it. Maybe this makes me a bad person, I don’t care, but at least I’m an bad person who is still alive.
We have one of the best codes of conduct of any army and Pallywood is an actual thing, people who judge us based on a heavily and expertly tweaked and edited videos from Palestinian “journalists” who are funded by a regime whose major stated goal is to topple Israel (I wish it was about coexistence and state building but it isn’t, sadly), who are known to use human shields and try to amp up civilian casualties to gain national sympathy, should feel ashamed that they’re throwing us under an (exploding) bus to virtue signal and feel good about themselves, that they’re better than us unsophisticated barbaric Israelis. That they’re believing Hamas propaganda instead of giving us the benefit of the doubt, supporting us with the knowledge that we do the best we can with the shitty situation we are in, with the enemy using PR as it’s major tactic cause it knows it doesn’t stand a chance militarily.
Sincerely,
An Israeli who is sick and tired of foreigners and uninformed virtue signallers telling us what to do.
