As Israelis and Palestinians separately duck for cover from Tehran’s missile and drone fire, Martha and I have also been busy defending ourselves against pigeons.

Unlike Iran’s murderous IRGC with its proxy militias Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas, and rank-and-file Palestinian terrorists, and unlike Israelis attacking Palestinians and other Israelis, the pigeons – albeit more aggressive by nature than I’d prefer – have no hostile intentions but are only trying to adapt to their environment and stay alive.

The same as I do not blame pigeons as I do persons, I do not impute moral (or rather immoral) equivalence between Israel on the whole and those who seek our destruction. We, like pigeons, are trying to survive; our enemies, unlike pigeons, want to kill us. Viciously destructive elements (Jewish settler mobs and Haredi hoodlums) within a community don’t invalidate it; a community whose self-definition hinges (as “Palestine” does) on another’s (i.e., Israel’s) destruction lacks validity.

We more or less solved the pigeon problem by securing spikes that had been placed all along the top of our mirpeset/balcony balustrade and fastening new ones along the bottom. Although a few pigeons flying by and perched........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)