I Called Piers a Mentsch Once and I Meant It
I called Piers a Mentsch because he did something nice for me and I thought it respectable that a man of his acclaim would help someone random when they really didn’t have to.
There’s a lot of finger pointing now. Slurs and names thrown around because media commentators take positions that others don’t like. I get it. Everyone thinks they are right and if they don’t defend their views who will.
The pundits host shows to facilitate discussion. The aim is for members to present contrasting view points allowing the audience to develop an opinion with the maximum available information.
Providing a platform for authentic debate has become increasingly hard. Not just because the topics are tough and the opinions of each guest are held fervently but because those who are tasked with mediating often have opinions of their own. Their opinions like those they are platforming end up meddling with the objectivity of the discussion and force a contention one way or the other.
Today public opinion is divided.
One party uses emotion and tragedy to pull at the heart strings of their audience and another has to defend a military strategy that is being portrayed as senseless and primitive.
There is a population stuck in the fray of a war launched by their elected government against a sovereign neighboring state with no intention of surrender.
The narrative of despair and helplessness has been leveraged tactically to create a catch-22 for the one nation intent on defending its citizens.
Be ‘humane’ and stop the war or be ‘humane’ and finish it. Translated into military speak you can either be kind to those who want to hurt you or be kind to those you’ve sworn to protect.
“You’ve done quite enough killing”
What does that mean? Do you really believe killing is the preferred option here?
The Bible differentiates between murder and killing. There are numerous scenarios where killing is not a choice but a requirement.
When someone seeks to do you lethal harm you are not ‘allowed’ to defend yourself, you are compelled to.
If that someone is elected by a group of people without weapons, hides behind, underneath and among them and has the capability and intent to commit unspeakable acts of terror you are not ‘allowed’ to stop them but morally obligated to. At all costs.
What makes this scenario so infuriating is not the injustice of blaming the wrong parties or forcing them to take measures you’d never rightly expect from any other nation in the world, but the intent from otherwise good commentators to side with those who seek to do harm because they created a better narrative.
I don’t hate them. I don’t call them Anti-Semitic, Racist or think they value Jewish lives any less than they do Palestinian.
I am disappointed by them. I wonder if they ask themselves why they see this war as so different from all wars fought previously? Why they are so easily manipulated by numbers and images brought forth by a sworn enemy of their own sovereign countries?
How did the inventors of contemporary suicide bombings (Hezbollah 1970s), the earliest adopters of plane hijacking (PLO 1960s) and perpetrators of the worst live-streamed kidnapping operation in history so easily convince you that the people who elected them and have stood by them are being purposely killed for sport by an evil army of Jews intent on murdering children?
The army - represented by Arabs, Jews, Christians and more - continuously warn, move and provide aid to the population. They are not the only bordering state but the only one at war with them, yet they are solely responsible for their wellbeing.
To sit and mock a panelist you have invited on your show as they try to defend these actions will invite criticism on to you. Not because it’s unfair (it is) or because she couldn’t handle it (she did), but because you have been vocal in your pursuit of truth and yesterday you sought to silence it.
Can you disagree with these opinions? Of course you can. You are as entitled as anyone else to the freedom of speech and opinion. It’s only that you have so assiduously protected the freedom of debate and providence of differing views that seeing you so partisan that you won’t let your guest speak was disappointing to those who value your platform.
I don’t agree with your views and that’s okay. I just wish you would give some thought to why and how this war has developed as it has and who is responsible for it. In the place of criticism of current policy, provide an alternative that protects citizens on both sides now and in the future.
Learn from past events and ask why land for peace hasn’t worked? Why are ceasefires continuously broken and how are the most violent organizations always ‘re-elected’?
Ask yourself what a government under attack for 77 years is to do when it is surrounded by those seeking to do it harm and criticized by nations the world over?
I’ll listen.