Surely, the most chilling part of the film is an audio-only clip: a terrorist calling home to tell his parents that he is in Israel and killing Jews — 10, he boasts, including a woman whose phone he is using. “Their blood is on my hands,” he cries, joyously. “Your son’s a hero.” Charles Lane, a Washington Post column writer, describes a collection of film clips made by Hamas agents and shown by the Israeli Embassy.

The Hamas killers who attacked Israeli unarmed men, women, children, and babies are cowards. Yes, they are also unbelievably nasty homicidal maniacs driven by hate and fear, but at their core, they are cowards. Their hate and anger are so strong, so pervasive, that it has oozed out and corroded them as human beings. Israel has released a series of clips made by the Hamas killers themselves, and it is ugly. They are ugly people who, somehow, think they are heroes because they killed helpless people. There must be a better word than disgusting when describing such inhumane behavior, but none comes to mind.

I like to think that I am a practical guy, not necessarily in my real life but in my giving advice to countries-that-didn’t-ask life; even though I am a liberal, I think that my solutions – answers? opinions? – for most of those, and our country’s problems are based on practicability rather than how liberal they are. In that vain, I think what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank is wrong. Wrong because it will not solve the problem. When I say solve the problem, I am assuming that most – with most being the operative word here – Israelis want to live in peace, and I don’t think stealing land from the Palestinians for Jewish settlements in the West Bank and bombing the shit out Palestinians in Gaza will result in long-term peace.

I keep reading about the Israeli-Hamas War as if it were a real war. But it is not a war any more than the October 27, 2018, Pittsburgh synagogue slaughter was a shoot-out. On the first day, Hamas’ cowardly attack killed about 1,200 people and injured 6,900 others. Israel killed that many Palestinians in the first half an hour of their retaliation. According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, as of December 30, 2023, the death toll in Gaza is 27,681 civilians, including bout 9,077 children.

When this is over, the majority of the survivors will be beaten into submission, but not all and not forever. A sizable number of survivors will join Hamas, or the next Hamas-like resistance movement, willing to kill and die for what they consider a just cause. The numbers that I see don’t paint a promising picture for Israel: there are about 6.8 million Jewish people living in Israel and 2.5 million Arabs – whatever that means – and 5.35 million self-identified Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank of what, for all practical purposes, is now greater Israel.

As I sit here staring at my computer screen, I realize that I have been here before, and I’ve written about this over and over again. (The Tragedy of Israel. Israel in the West Bank.) The difference, I guess, if there is any difference, is how the world is reacting. Increasingly, the world is acknowledging the deaths of Palestinians. Today’s Washington Post’s front page had an article that started, Settlers killed a Palestinian teen. Israeli forces didn’t stop it. A review of the deadliest settler attack in the West Bank since the war began shows how increasingly violent tactics have gone unpunished. Today’s Los Angeles Times front page says – asks? – Is Israel’s treatment of Palestinians a form of apartheid?… Video appears to show Israeli army shooting 3 Palestinians, killing 1, without provocation. Right now, the Israelis seem to be reacting to that by killing pro-Palestinian journalists who are acting as witnesses, still the world does seem to be changing.

That this can not be the way Israelis want to be seen by the world gives me some hope.