…for another eye
'til everyone is blind
— Tommy Sands, "There Were Roses" (c. 1985)
I'll just cringe as they gouge a few more eyes in the Levant — a region far more volatile (and historically gefickt) than Northern Ireland — on the second anniversary of an atrocity. Remember (or, in practice, forget) that "Never Again" is meaningless unless it applies to everyone, else one ends up with purity tests for who is AmericanJewish enough to be entitled to take a turn as the bully. That the abused have a strong predisposition to become abusers themselves is at most an explanation — not an excuse, or even a particularly noncringeworthy rationalization. Of course, Mr Sands himself recognized this all too well…
<SARCASM> All that matters is protecting the right grandchildren. None of the others deserve the same consideration. It's not like that neglect encourages anyone else. </SARCASM> If that's too woke for you: The opposite of woke is not righteous anger but coma.
Of course, I could make much more inflammatory comments here. I could describe the responsibility of European elites for the inevitability of this particular situation, through their own maneuverings in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries without regard to more than two millenia of history (with footnotes). I could note the sub rosa need for more and more territory… by everyone involved. I could note the uniform history of theocracies creating Torquemadas — and, worse yet, post hoc rationalizations therefore (and even veneration of) — and nod at every government within a thousand kilometers of Gaza, whether overtly or otherwise. But for today, I'll just question the company being kept — historical, logical, ethical. And express the almost-certainly-futile hope for some adult behavior in the Levant (generally absent since, oh, the start of recorded history).