You know, there is a lot of ridiculous and quite unfair criticism of Israel floating around, simply because it has been relentlessly bombing 1.5 million people trapped in a 360 square kilometre open-air prison over which it maintains a brutal siege and has slaughtered hundreds of people including dozens of children, supposedly in retaliation for homemade rockets fired from Gaza that has kill a total of one person in the current conflict.
But there is a little reported story that shows exactly what Israel's true values are.
Countering the all-too prevalent anti-Israel bias, the Jerusalem Post informed the world: “In light of the escalation in Gazan rocket fire over the country's South, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Israel is inviting southern residents to bring their pets for free to the organization's shelter in Tel Aviv.”
Yes, for free! Not a cent needs to be paid to ensure that no Israeli's pet need be threatened or troubled by any Palestinians' homemade rockets.
So we can all rest easy, those Israeli kittens are being kept safe to be filmed for amusing gifs on Tumblr! A great victory for the forces freedom-loving civilisation over the terrorists' barbarism!
But, you might say, looking after pets is all well and good, but what about the civilians that Israel keeps killing in Gaza, even though Israel keeps insisting it is trying really hard not to kill civilians in Gaza?
(This really isn't Israel's fault by the way. You see, and you won't believe this, but those goddamn Hamas terrorists running Gaza have actually gotten all these civilians living ― and you won't credit it but I swear it is true ― in houses!
I know right? And you know who else lives in houses? People Israel say are terrorists! You can't tell me that's a coincidence! What is Israel expected to do in the fact of such an evil tactic except indiscriminately bomb Gazan homes?
And it is not even just houses. Seriously, some Gazan schools reportedly even have school children in them and some hospitals house sick people! No one can realistically expect Israel to be able to second-guess such trickery.)
Some well-meaning people confused by anti-Semitic propaganda might suggest that if you can ensure a cute kitty is not unsettled by a bit of rocket fire, why can't they do the same for Gazan civilians?
The answer is Israel does help such people! For example, on July 16, Israel dropped leaflets and used recorded phone messages to warn about 100,000 residents in Gaza's north and east to leave their homes because Israel was about to carry out fresh air strikes.
Now, you can't do fairer than that, can you? I mean, sure people in Gaza actually have nowhere to go, because Israel walls them in on one side, and refuses to open its heavily militarised border, in fact shooting on sight any Gazan who even dares approach it, and the other sides are blocked by Egypt and the sea, and Gaza has no Navy with which to evacuate anyone, but really Israel can only be expected to do so much.
After all, they need all the resources they can muster to shift all those pets to safety.
And sure, some people might argue that, with Israel subjecting a besieged people with nowhere to go to constant air strikes for nearly two weeks before starting a large-scale ground invasion of the already devastated territory, to then go and rub the noses of the victims of its aggression by working hard to ensure no Israeli citizen's goddamn pet suffers unduly from the conflict, that this is an utterly sick and thoroughly racist statement that the live of an Israeli citizen's pet is worth more than a Palestinian's.
But then that is exactly the kind of thing you'd expect hate-filled critics of Israel to say.
So it is important, in the midst of such horrors, to hear some positive stories for a change, and once again it was up to the Jerusalem Post to bring the good news to the world in a July 13 article entitled “Missiles are no match for Schnitzel the Cat”!
“A cat managed to escape unscathed after missile shrapnel fell directly on his tree Sunday afternoon,” The Post happily reported. “The shrapnel was the result of the Iron Dome Missile Defense System intercepting a rocket fired from Gaza.
“In the video, captured by a security camera in central Israel, the remains of the deactivated Gazan rocket can be seen violently falling on the tree. Moments later, Schnitzel the Cat hops down from the same tree and runs home, presumably to the joy of his owners.”
A heartwarming story and another great victory for the forces of civilisation over barbarism!
On that very same day, July 13, over the wall in Gaza, an Israeli air strike killed 18 members of the same family, including six children and three women, one of them pregnant, all blown to pieces by a precision missile fired by one of the most technologically advanced military's in the world.
But there are always some casualties in any war, so don't let that get you down too much -- after all, Schnitzel's still alive and the fate of Israeli pets is surely the key thing here.
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