As most of you reading this can imagine there was one issue and one issue only on JPost.com bloggers' minds this week: The IDF’s
Operation Pillar of Defense in the Gaza Strip.
Every blogger who published this week approached the situation from their own personal angle; from Ashley Rindsberg's blog about the
media winners and losers in the Gaza conflict (shame on you BBC), to Yisrael Medad's
critique of Gilad Sharon's Jerusalem Post op-ed, to
Robert Eisenman's historical analysis of the recent flare up. Each blogger was eager to voice their
opinions,
outrage,
critique, and
personal experiences stemming from the conflict - the majority with a bleak view of events:
Ashley Rindsberg writes:
"Does this mean that this operation, or this war, if it becomes one, will be decisive? No. It almost certainly will not be. There are no more decisive victories any more. It's not a snake whose head we can 'cut off,' as some Israeli politicians have announced to the media. Hamas, and Islamist terror at large, is a colony of terror, whose appendages might be cut off but always re-grow with time.
Ira Sharkansky joins him in his pessimistic outlook:
"What we have seen so far in the present Israeli operation represents another mode of coping. It will not end the violence. There are too many elements, each with their outside patrons, who compete with their hatred of Israel as well with their efforts to frustrate whatever political arrangements their rivals might be tempted to accept… Realities being what they are, the most to be expected is a limited time of limited quiet, until the incidence of daily rockets or other violence produces the next breaking point in Israel's tolerance.
As does Gadi Adelman:
"There will never be a peace with a group who is bent on the destruction and death of Israel and the Jewish people, it is really that simple…Israel must eliminate the threat just as any other nation would if they were attacked. Otherwise in the near future this will just be another déjà vu and the words 'déjà vu' and 'Gaza' should never be in the same sentence.
Nevertheless, despite these somber views, many JPost.com bloggers did not give in to the "inevitable" and have been fighting their own
war on another front: actively combating anti-Israel propaganda and rhetoric on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Petra Marquardt-Bigman (
@WarpedMirrorPMB), Michael Omer-Man (
@MikeOmerMan), and of course yours truly (
@Jpost_Blogs) have been tweeting non-stop this week, challenging misinformation and offering updates in real time.
And so, with Israel barraged by rockets,
targeted by hackers, misrepresented in the media, it seems there is a war to fight on every front. This is why the articles our bloggers write, the interviews they give (great job Yoni Cohen on your
interview for the BBC!), the tweets they post, whether critical, flattering or somewhere in between, are so important and necessary.
Call it self-aggrandizing, ego-centric, or whatever, but as
The Jerusalem Post’s blogs editor, I can truly say that JPost.com bloggers offering their opinions, analyses, bringing lesser known facts to light, and providing different aspects and angles of the situation allow readers around the world a fuller, more personal and meaningful picture of events.
Stay safe everyone.
The writer is The Jerusalem Post
’s blogs editor.