The title might have you scratching your head, wondering how US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE, could have anything in common with Israel.
Well, think again. Because now that ICE is trying to do its job of gathering up illegals in order to rightly deport them back to their own countries, there are complaints about the visual optics of how it is being carried out, making people feel uncomfortable.
But what exactly are the images that are causing such discomfort to viewers? It is the force that must be used against interfering citizens who are blocking, preventing, or impeding these agents of the law from executing their mission.
In some ways, people are playing defense for the real criminals, some of whose mugshots and rap sheets would shock most everyone, since their crimes include child rape and murder.
Who would lose any sleep knowing that such evil people are being removed from their neighborhoods? But that is not what is being broadcast. Instead, we are seeing everyday Americans – moms, dads, and grandparents – being manhandled, pushed around, and shoved into squad cars.
Sadly, needed context is missing, and that is what is cynically being used to make it look and sound like ICE is coming for innocent, ordinary people. However, these are anything but innocent and ordinary folks. They are activists for hire, agitators whose goal is to defy the law, uninformed women who have suddenly taken leave of their senses, and anarchists who hate law and order.
That is why they are willingly taking on the role of human shields, in an attempt to defend the indefensible – protecting violent killers whose joy comes from hurting others.
This is where the similarity to Israel comes in.
Israel is compelled to defend its citizens
In the wake of a bloody massacre executed by violent terrorists whose aim was to destroy whole communities, if not the entire Jewish homeland, Israel was morally and righteously compelled to defend its citizens and protect its country.
Only insane people would have protested the defense of a sovereign nation, instead advocating for those who tried to bludgeon it. But in the war of biased media reporting, the visual images of Hamas terrorists being killed for their dastardly acts would not have been helpful to antisemites whose objective was to paint Jews as the real enemy.
Consequently, Hamas terrorists wearing green headbands and dressed in full warfare gear had to be replaced by innocents being inhumanely targeted.
This meant that instead of seeing the death of terrorists on the evening news, we saw women, children, doctors, nurses, the elderly, and anyone who could elicit sympathy and evoke strong opposition to a legitimate defensive campaign aimed only at terrorists, even if the others were unintended victims.
Once those visuals were rapidly disseminated throughout the world, it did not take long before Israel was accused of perpetrating a genocide by deliberately targeting innocents: Mission accomplished. That way, everyone could rail against the only democracy in the Middle East and against Diaspora Jews, guilty by ethnic association.
It has been a clever maneuver to replace the real criminals with “others.” In the case of Minnesota, the stand-ins are willingly facilitating the capture of killers, while in the case of Gaza, the human shields probably had no choice other than to take the risks that they were forced to take.
But make no mistake. In both cases, the switch was calculated and purposeful in order to manipulate viewers and get them to side with those wanting to put an end to an operation that was justified and necessary.
The goal of causing everyone to “feel uncomfortable” with what they are viewing nightly should not be underestimated. In the present atmosphere, where feelings trump everything else, the loud cries of everyday people who think they are defending the defenseless are a powerful and highly effective tool.
Of course, most manipulated people do not realize that their emotions, thoughts, and reflexes have been carefully influenced and exploited in order to persuade them to support a side that does not possess truth or goodness – hence the need to manipulate.
That is the sad part in all of this. Feelings have been weaponized with the help of visual images that appear to be an honest rendering of the situation. This is what causes the outcries of people who do not seem to comprehend the real villains – whether murderous illegals or Hamas terrorists.
There are others who realize that these battles must be fought. They understand the great danger posed by killers who are devoid of conscience. Their advice is to carry out the job, but in some other way so as not to intimidate or harm those who are not the real enemy.
Of course, they never explain how that can be done when there is a coordinated campaign to block and prevent killers from being apprehended. The fact that they are unable to internalize the plight of the military or ICE law enforcers is lamentable.
Because if they were the ones trying to render justice but were precluded from doing so due to a ring of human shields surrounding and protecting criminals, what other option would they have except to use force to remove the obstacles?
In this case, using tear gas or other means of dispersing people is also visually distressing. In a recent incident, a six-month-old baby who was in the vicinity of one of these demonstrations went into respiratory distress and had to undergo CPR after being exposed to a gas canister.
Nonetheless, demonstrators must be prevented from impeding the job that must be executed by law enforcement in order to keep the community safe. How is this not understood by those fortunate enough not to be tasked with this virtually impossible job?
Covering for criminals is inexcusable and immoral. Anyone who has broken the law must be accountable to the authorities and to the public it violated. To forgo that essential element of justice is to be indifferent to the welfare of one’s fellow.
It breaks the rule of treating others as you would want to be treated. Because if someone is imperiling your life by protecting an evildoer, they have enabled the danger to remain with impunity. We have already seen this done with Israel, and now it is being done with ICE.
The writer is a former Jerusalem elementary and middle school principal. She is the author of Mistake-Proof Parenting, based on the time-tested wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs, available on Amazon.