Editorials

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I hate to say I told you so, but… I wrote this as a Berkeley Daily Planet editorial just about 20 years ago, in April of 2004.

“The ancient Greeks told stories about the history of the world as they knew it which are still a useful way to predict what will happen to humans in the modern world. Hercules, half man and half god, was one of the central figures in Greek mythology. Like Superman in the 20th century, he dedicated his career to stamping out evil wherever he found it. One of the labors, or heroic tasks, of Hercules was killing the legendary Hydra.

“Whoever is calling the shots in Israel today would be well advised to study the lesson of Hercules and the poisonous Hydra, depicted below.

“According to Bullfinch, ‘the Hydra had nine heads, of which the middle one was immortal. Hercules struck off its heads with his club, but in the place of the head knocked off, two new ones grew forth each time.’

“At the moment, Israeli leaders are engaged in the seemingly futile task of cutting off the heads of Hamas. They can be sure that for every leader they assassinate, two will grow in his place.

[Note to my faithful Zionist correspondents: we are not talking about morality here. We are talking about strategy and logic.] 

“Now, it’s true that Hercules eventually defeated the Hydra, as Bullfinch recounts: ‘At length with the assistance of his faithful servant Iolaus, he burned away the heads of the Hydra, and buried the ninth or immortal one under a huge rock.’ 

“But what Sharon and his ilk should also keep in mind is Hercules’ ultimate fate. He dipped his arrows into the Hydra’s venom, which gave them magical powers to vanquish enemies. This, however, eventually resulted in the hero’s death. A venom-dipped arrow was used to kill one Nessus. As he was dying, Nessus persuaded Hercules’ wife to dip a shirt in his blood to use as a love potion. She gave it to Hercules to wear, and when he put it on it, it killed him. 

“The Latin poet Ovid described the gruesome outcome in Metamorphoses: 

‘Desperately he tried to tear the fatal shirt away; each tear tore his skin too, and, loathsome to relate, either it stuck, defeating his attempts to free it from his flesh, or else laid bare his lacerated muscles and huge bones. Why, as the poison burned, his very blood bubbled and hissed as when a white-hot blade is quenched in icy water. Never an end! The flames licked inwards, greedy for his guts; dark perspiration streamed from every pore; his scorching sinews crackled; the blind rot melted his marrow ... In wounded agony he roamed the heights of Oeta [and died escaping pain in the flames of his funeral pyre].’ 

“Israel, half secular state and half theocracy, with the help of its faithful servant the United States, might be able to destroy Hamas. Americans have traditionally admired Israel, and condemned Hamas’ suicide bomber tactics. But if Israeli leaders dip their arrows into the venom of those they despise, they could be creating the means for their own nation’s destruction.” 

In the two decades since, many similar warnings that Israel has been creating the means for its own destruction have been published, a substantial number as editorials or Public Comments in the Planet, along with the small number of counter arguments which were submitted here in that period. 

The critiques of Israel were mostly gentle, but a few were inartful at best. What happened is what is sometimes called these days “weaponizing anti-semitism.” That is to say, attributing motivation for being told something unpleasant to prejudice against Jews on the part of the messenger and using this charge to advocate killing the messenger. 

For an excellent road map of how that works, read this June 2009 article by the great Richard Brenneman: The Campaign Against the Daily Planet. Click through all the links to get the full picture of how it worked. 

That campaign became a major contributing factor in the O’Malley family’s reluctant decision the following February that we were unable to continue to provide financial support for a print publication. 

We made an effort to create a graphic version which could be printed on demand at a copy shop, but the shop we were working with had to withdraw after threats from the usual suspects. 

We got some threats at home too, easily found since we’ve lived in the same old house on a busy Berkeley street for a half-century. The funniest one was from the guy whose announced plan was to urinate on our garage. As far as I know he never followed through. 

The most controversy was provoked by a commentary by an Iranian English as a Second Language student claiming that “So long as the Zionists have no regard for the lives of others, people around the world will turn into anti-Semites, regardless of their religions.” 

That’s a message, true or false, that a lot of people say they just don’t want. A lot of people in the general category of militant Zionists have never wanted to hear bad news. 

The Wicked Witch in “The Wiz” tells it like this: Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News. 

The nay-sayers here included a full complement of local politicians, such as Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and his wife Loni Hancock, who signed a letter delivered (and probably circulated) by a rabbi, ending “We therefore call on Ms. O’Malley to apologize to the community.” 

Well, I call on the signers to apologize to me, and once again I thank the many community members, both Jewish and not, who came to our defense. And the pols should apologize to the innocent Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli acts since then, and to the Israelis who died on October 7. 

The hydra-headed monster which began with Israel’s assassination of Hamas leaders is now propagating in Gaza, and Israel’s leaders are dipping into the hydra’s venom to “punish” Gaza. 

Here I must repeat that I’m just talking about strategy, not morality. Israel’s current activities in Gaza are of course unspeakably evil, but also transparently stupid. 

Killing tens of thousands of innocents, including at least 13,000 children who were not even born when I wrote that editorial, will inevitably produce hundreds of thousands of new recruits from the, yes, non-Jewish denizens of the Semitic worlds which they historically have shared with the Jews. More will be radicalized in the next two decades if Israel can’t stop the killing in Gaza so the parties can make peace. It’s true that Hamas started the fight this time with the vicious October 7 raid which killed close to two thousand people, but the (democratically elected) Netanyahu government of Israel prolonged and amplified it—and they’ve assassinated a few more Palestinian leaders lately to prove the point, as well murdering many thousands of innocent bystanders. 

To all Semites, regardless of denomination or history: It’s time to cut it out. 

Don’t say you haven’t been warned. 

It’s even in all of your holy books, not just in the Planet and the L.A. Times. 

God gave Noah the rainbow sign, / No more water, the fire next time. 

Going through the 20+ years of Berkeley Daily Planet archives to find the links which appear here, I see that a remarkable number of opinions and news articles could just be re-run as is, because not much has really changed. 

From my own adopted tradition, the sadly prophetic words of the eternal Pete Seeger: 

When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?