Few things that Israelis say or do can still shock or amaze me. Very few things, like this tweet of a Labor Party MK and former star of the Children’s Channel, Efrat Rayten, in response to the Israel Defense Forces attack on Gaza on Monday: “The IDF is carrying out a successful operation to assassinate senior Jihad members. Thank God that our soldiers returned safely. I wish quiet to Israel’s inhabitants, and to the inhabitants of the Gaza border communities in particular.
“A complicated job for Israel in connection with the killing of children, including a 5-year-old girl, and women, by our forces. Pictures that are hard to explain. [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir was excluded from the decision to embark on the operation. The message – you’re unwanted and harmful.”
There were days in the Labor Party – before the shame disappeared and the false pose of a left-wing party had yet to crash along with the Knesset seats in the polls – when the tendency was to release reports appropriate for “a left-wing democratic party opposed to the occupation.”
For example, they used to write: “pictures that are hard to look at,” “our heart aches for the innocent,” or “Israel is trying to refrain from harming civilians, unfortunately the killing of bystanders is unavoidable collateral damage.” True, it’s lip service, but still necessary in order to justify her title and the votes of her supporters.
I find it hard to understand how someone who sees the pictures of 4-year-old Hajar and 8-year-old Ali and 12-year-old Miar smiling at the camera can write: “Pictures that are hard to explain.” After all, Rayten didn’t mean that it’s hard to explain these pictures in the sense of “How the hell can one explain the killing of innocent children,” but more in the sense of “hasbara.” As far as she’s concerned, young children who are killed in their sleep are nothing more than material catalogued under “PR damage to Israel.”
It’s impossible to explain Rayten’s tweet as moral corruption or as catering to the right. The only explanation is insensitivity and a loss of humanity. Dead children aren’t a “PR problem” nor are they a “complicated job for Israel.” Dead children are a tragedy. And the fact that Rayten doesn’t understand that is shocking. Not only because she’s from a “left-wing” party, but also because the woman who wrote this tweet was familiar with the world of children and their gentle souls from up close. She entertained them, sang to them, touched their hearts and spoke to them better than anyone else.
Doesn’t Rayten think that all the children in the world are alike? Or are the blood of Jewish children and their private world and their dreams and pain different and even more valuable than those of Palestinian children? Apparently the propaganda machine and the dehumanization of the Palestinians doesn’t skip over any Israeli.
On the evening before the attack on Gaza a story ran during the main news program on Channel 13 about a draft report composed by a special envoy of the United Nations secretary general. It held that due to the harm caused to children – the report says Israel killed about 50 Palestinian children in 2022 – the United Nations is examining whether to add Israel to the organization’s blacklist, along with ISIS and Al-Qaida. The story was headlined: “The UN’s anti-Israel report.”
When will Israelis understand that the report isn’t anti-Israeli, it’s Israel that’s anti. Anti a normal life, anti the lives of Palestinians and anti the lives of children (unless they’re Jews).
Dead Palestinian Children Aren’t a ‘PR Problem’
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11.05.2023
Few things that Israelis say or do can still shock or amaze me. Very few things, like this tweet of a Labor Party MK and former star of the Children’s Channel, Efrat Rayten, in response to the Israel Defense Forces attack on Gaza on Monday: “The IDF is carrying out a successful operation to assassinate senior Jihad members. Thank God that our soldiers returned safely. I wish quiet to Israel’s inhabitants, and to the inhabitants of the Gaza border communities in particular.
“A complicated job for Israel in connection with the killing of children, including a 5-year-old girl, and women, by our forces. Pictures that are hard to explain. [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir was excluded from the decision to embark on the operation. The message – you’re unwanted and harmful.”
There were days in the Labor Party – before the shame disappeared and the false pose of a........
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