Sigh - I'm not sure why I'm writing this article as I'm very pro Israel. There's enough bashing of Israel from everybody else. But every now and then I see something and I just want to hit somebody over the head for their stupidity. And the article I read a few minutes ago in the Jerusalem Post just created a whole diary in my head. For some reason, I feel the urge to write it, so here goes.
This is the article in question.
Julie is one lucky Gazan filly: IDF forces came to her rescue after discovering her running around her mother's dead body in an area of heavy fighting in Gaza, and decided to save her and bring her back to Israel with them.
Luck is a relative term here. I'm not going to equate animals with humans, but Julie has, after all, just been made an orphan. Of course, we don't know if her mother was killed by something that came from the IDF or from Hamas, but she's dead nonetheless. I guess she's 'lucky' that she didn't get killed too and that she was rescued, but if she was really 'lucky' she and her mother would have been grazing in peace with no war going on.
The compassionate soldiers called The Pegasus Foundation, the Society for the Protection of Horses & Donkeys in Israel, which came to take her to her new life on Israeli land.
Julie undoubtedly belonged to somebody. Though the article does say she was 'skinny', her owners have probably had a bit more on their minds than feeding their livestock. Probably couldn't get to her, anyway. I don't know what a horse costs in those parts, but it wouldn't be negligible. So, yes, Julie probably will be given a life of luxury on an Israeli Kibbutz, but the article really does ignore the fact that she was, essentially, stolen. I get the human impulse to rescue an animal in need, but then I wouldn't go posting on Facebook, bragging about the horse whose mother you probably just killed and who you then stole.
No, I'm not pandering here. I support Operation Protective Edge. From where I sit, it's a necessary evil. But I just can't get behind something rah-rah like this in the midst of it.