Richard Silverstein on the religious/literary angle:
It is the seventh night of Hanukah, and Sol Salbe tells me that the
military operation’s name, Solid Lead (or “Cast Lead”), derives from
Chaim Nachman Bialik’s children’s poem, For Hanukah:
Teacher bought a big top for me,
Solid lead, the finest known.
In whose honor, for whose glory?
For Hanukkah alone.
It is just like modern Israel and Zionism to appropriate Jewish
history, holiday and tradition to justify its own agenda. Quite
macabre also to think that the IDF has defiled a delightful children’s
poem by Bialik in order to convey the power of its onslaught against
Hamas (”solid lead”).
