18-Jul-06: Why we fight

We listened last night to what was undoubtedly the finest speech prime minister Ehud Olmert - no stranger to public speaking - has made. (Full text here.)

Addressing the Knesset on the fifth day of hard warfare on Israel's northern front, his tone almost Churchillian, Olmert referred to three soldiers seized by hostile forces and provocatively kidnapped to a place where there is no Red Cross, no Geneva Convention, no fundamental values of civility, no civilization. Actually we think he was referring to all the sons and daughters of this country, and to all of their parents, when he invoked the words of Chapter 31 of the Book of Jeremiah:

A voice is heard on high, wailing, bitter weeping.
Rachel weeps for her children.
She refuses to be consoled for her children for they are gone.
Thus said Hashem: Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears. For there is reward for your accomplishment - the word of Hashem.
They will return from the enemy's land.
There is hope for your future - the word of Hashem.
And your children will return to their land.

Today, Gazan Palestinian society provided a striking and articulate demonstration of what they want for their children.

About 100 veiled and heavily armed Palestinian women marched through the streets of Gaza City Tuesday. The militant women belong to a unit recently founded by the Popular Resistance Committees. The 'Army of Suicidal Bombers,' as it is dubbed, consists entirely of women. A message released by the PRC states that the objective of the new unit is to protect "Palestinian land." The procession was led by the mother of Abu Yusuf Al-Kuka - a PRC founder assassinated by Israel two months ago. She was carrying an RPG missile launcher on her shoulder. A spokeswoman for the unit said that the ASB was founded in order "to aid the men in their war against the enemy." The militant women burned Israeli, U.S., British, and EU flags. In an unprecedented step they also defaced an Arab League flag, which they then proceeded to set ablaze.

We don't care to have the images of these appalling people displayed here on our pages. But for anyone wanting to see them, they're available online here and here.

The image we publish above shows young men of the IDF Artillery Corps undergoing preparation of an entirely different sort just outside Gaza this morning. Artillery happens to be the military arm where one of our sons completed his compulsory military service.

We called our blog This Ongoing War because, as the parents of a child murdered by people of hatred who literally danced in the streets of their communities after the massacre was perpetrated, we understand that this is a war which is ongoing, that it will have many turns, that it will take place on many fronts and that it will take tremendous determination and focus in order to prevail.

We also believe the progress of this ongoing war, and the pain it causes, will get much worse before it gets much better. For their own very different reasons, the 'Suicidal Bombers' of Gaza agree.