Defense against Pigeons and Stool Pigeons |
As Israelis and Palestinians separately duck for cover from Tehran’s missile and drone fire, Martha and I have also been busy defending ourselves against pigeons.
Unlike Iran’s murderous IRGC with its proxy militias Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas, and rank-and-file Palestinian terrorists, and unlike Israelis attacking Palestinians and other Israelis, the pigeons – albeit more aggressive by nature than I’d prefer – have no hostile intentions but are only trying to adapt to their environment and stay alive.
The same as I do not blame pigeons as I do persons, I do not impute moral (or rather immoral) equivalence between Israel on the whole and those who seek our destruction. We, like pigeons, are trying to survive; our enemies, unlike pigeons, want to kill us. Viciously destructive elements (Jewish settler mobs and Haredi hoodlums) within a community don’t invalidate it; a community whose self-definition hinges (as “Palestine” does) on another’s (i.e., Israel’s) destruction lacks validity.
We more or less solved the pigeon problem by securing spikes that had been placed all along the top of our mirpeset/balcony balustrade and fastening new ones along the bottom. Although a few pigeons flying by and perched on the wall above launch occasional retributive missiles that disgustingly splatter on the tiles, we no longer have to deal with these assertive birds’ constant invasive presence. A degree of peace and quiet has taken hold there.
Aggression from human beings is another matter. Several nights ago, a siren sounded without prior warning, the Home Front Command’s app reporting “Rocket and missile fire” sailing toward us in Zikhron Yaakov. We jumped out of bed at 1:30 am and dashed down the hall to the safe room as we heard explosions in the vicinity.
No injury ensued hereabouts; fragments fell harmlessly to the ground. Other parts of eretz yisrael have been far less fortunate over this past month.
I dislike having to scare away pigeons, but even more having to continue – as I agree with most Jewish Israelis (78% according to the latest poll1) on the need – to fight a war to prevent murderous mullahs from annihilating us.
There are pigeons, and then there are stool pigeons.
“This term alludes to a bird tied to a stool or similar perch in order to attract other birds, which will then be shot.”2 Metaphorically speaking, the “stool pigeon is “a police informer”3 – in Rabbinic plural parlance, malshinim. They’re Jews who play along with our people’s enemies – the “police” in this case being antizionist thugs buoyed by an academic cheering section and bevy of media groupies.
The siddur / Jewish prayerbook flatly declares: velamalshinim al tehi tikvah / “let there be no hope for informers.” Commentary on that blessing states: “This petition…is directed against the early Christians who informed against Jews to the Roman authorities after the destruction of the Second Temple, causing them to be put to an excruciatingly painful death.”4
Rome exiled us from our homeland, and Christian Europe perpetuated, for nearly two millennia, the doctrine that we must remain in exile as punishment for having rejected and killed their deity.5
Liberal Christians claim that’s all behind them. On the whole, however, they are not condemning – and in many cases are parroting – rhetoric of “secular” antizionists, whose allegations of wrongdoing by Israel echo anti-Jewish libels promulgated, in previous generations, by Church leaders and laity.6 (A like spirit has crept into thinking of young conservative Christians notwithstanding professed commitment to “Christian Zionism” among Evangelicals.7)
Hard to know who are worse: genocidal maniacs lobbing missiles at us in Israel, or their Jewish fellow travelers – that flock of stool pigeons who supply rhetorical ammunition and (by presenting a “Jewish” face to promote the defamation) provide factitious cover for the antizionist onslaught.
We should not pigeonhole all of Israel’s critics, Jewish and otherwise, as complicit with reshayim / evil ones who mean us ill.
I just wish that most of that self-righteous gaggle could be more like those pigeons: even if offensive, at least absent of malice.
1 https://www.timesofisrael.com/78-of-jewish-israelis-support-continuing-iran-war-poll/
2 https://www.dictionary.com/browse/stool-pigeon
4https://www.sefaria.org/Siddur_Ashkenaz,_Weekday,_Shacharit,_Amidah,_Against_Enemies?lang=bi
5 https:www.fabriziomusacchio.com/weekend_stories/told/2025/2025-01-18-christian_antisemitism/ ; see also: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-891296
6 To wit: https://religionnews.com/2025/07/14/ijcic-condemns-world-council-of-churches-statement-as-profoundly-biased-and-threat-to-interfaith-relations/
7 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/03/08/gop-maga-israel-evangelicals-theology-premillennialism-00818312