CBC News reported today that 23 children have died in Gaza during the current Israeli invasion.The international community is aroused, blaming Israel for the deaths of innocent civilians.
Sometimes the obvious must be said.
The people of Palestine elected Hamas to direct their affairs. During the 6-month so-called "ceasefire," Hamas has done nothing but rearm itself and continue to direct rocket attacks with ever more sophisticated and longer-range missiles against the Israeli civilian population.
By every standard of international relations, lobbing missiles across international borders to target urban populations is an act of war.
Israel has responded in kind to the unapologetic aggressive stance of Hamas by escalating its longstanding blockade into a land invasion of the Gaza territory.
I'll grant you, the background situation is complex. Israel has often been wrong, unjust, and brutal - as have the Palestinians. The blockade of Gaza has induced hardships among Gaza's population proportionate to the suffering of Israel's citizens in response to continued rocket attacks.
However, both peoples have a right to exist. Hamas does not acknowledge this basic right of the Israeli people. Thus they are able to rationalize their out-and-out defiance of the negotiated terms of peaceful coexistence on repeated occasions. Hamas demonstrates no respect for international standards of peaceful coexistence, forcing the Israelis to contemplate and pursue a variety of retaliatory actions.
Hamas has rightly been identified as an international terrorist organization. By waging war on Israel, they have brought inevitable (in fact, preconsidered) consequences upon their own people.Israel's withdrawal from Gaza is not the solution. It is Hamas that has to go.
Until the Palestinians and their surrounding neighbours acknowledge Israel's right to exist, Israel has no option but to fight for its survival. This is human nature, and I salute the Israelis' commitment to the defense of their civilian population.
Hamas is forcing Israel into ground warfare in their urban operational base. They know civilians live here, and yet choose to conduct their operations in these settings.
By strategy and by policy, Hamas itself is killing the children of Gaza, but setting the stage to make Israel appear responsible. This is strategic cunning at its very worst. It is a ploy on their part to build heightened resentment against Israel, but the Israelis see through the smokescreen. You should too.Don't blame the Israelis for the suffering of the Palestinian peoples in Gaza who have been sacrificed through the cold calculations of their own leadership. Present events are unfolding by Hamas' playbook. The children of Gaza will not be safe to live and grow in peace until Hamas is entirely discredited and removed from power.
Israel's incursion is intended only to eliminate the personnel and infrastructure that support the continued illegal missile attacks on their soil. I wish them every success in this venture.
Remember that in times of peace, Israel sought to incorporate Palestinians into the fabric of Israeli society by providing education and employment opportunities to a people who previously had no such opportunities. The secular Israeli state was intended to incorporate and not to exclude the Palestinian people who chose to join in Israeli society.
When locked in combat with the Palestinians, Israel may appear the bully on the block. Certainly Israel has far more wealth and power at its disposal than do the Palestinians. By the same logic, however, Israel's citizens are greatly outnumbered by the Arabic and Islamic population of the Middle East. Israel is locked in a struggle for its survival and the Israelis know it. They are fighting strategically to assure the continuance of their people in a world that was willing to let every Jewish person on the planet die little more than half a century ago.
However paternalistic or one-sided Israel's original plan for the Palestinians may have been, it was an inclusive one. Hamas' only goal is to eliminate the population of Israel. That is genocidal intent, plain and simple.Internationally, Hamas advocates genocide. Internally, Hamas has planned the death and suffering of its own citizens. Shame on them for adopting and acting upon this brutal logic.
(Images sourced through the Wall Street Journal Online.)
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Hey Laurence, I live in Wasaga Beach, population 16,000 according to the signs, closer to 18,000 based on news editorials. On hot long weekends we get over 100,000 guests sometimes. Our town is roughly 12 miles long and 1 mile wide (we are spead out around the foot of the bay). Gaza is 25 miles long and 4 to 6 miles wide. With a population of 1.4 million. WOW!
ReplyDeleteI think Israel showed incredible patience waiting as long as they did to strike back.
My heart goes out to the innocents dieing, but as you said - they voted for Hamas.
Thanks Kevin.
ReplyDeleteYou have said it.
The leadership of Hamas has chosen murder over coexistence. I think it's that simple, and we are feeding the devolution by playing into the "poor them" illogic.
Both sides demonstrate a lack of respect for each other.
ReplyDeleteAs quoted in this link http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=43658043446&h=huVGb&u=LWZ
....rabbi Yaacov Perrin's statement that "one million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail".
Rabbi Perrin is not setting policy.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there are bigots on all sides.
Don't forget that Israel has had leaders such as Rabin and Perez.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1994/rabin-bio.html
Unfortunately, the leadership of Hamas sounds very like Rabbi Perrin. There will be no Nobel prizes for leaders such as these.
Sorry you have to be on facebook to get these links, I haven't found the actual link on the real site because it changes daily
ReplyDeletehttp://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=59126670983&h=m20Sf&u=VmKwB
"It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It did so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six Hamas men."
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=67860700336&h=hYsQ5&u=4qj1T
"Israel is "defending itself" against a people that it dispossessed and has occupied for decades, and specifically by bombing a densely populated territory that it has been collectively punishing for a year and a half. Collective punishment is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. By bombing universities, mosques, lines of graduating police recruits, farms and houses filled with women and children, Israel is violating the law of proportional response. It is the same strategy it pursued in its disastrous 2006 war against Lebanon, when it fired thousands of cluster bombs into civilian areas in the south so as to force a Shiite population transfer, and piling up heaps of corpses with the purpose of "bolstering its deterrence." Such actions, in which civilian casualties are accepted or even pursued in the interests of achieving strategic goals, are a textbook form of state terrorism, and under the circumstances of Israel's vise-grip on Palestinian lives, no more morally justifiable than Hamas' repellent attacks. America should not be supporting such actions, whether they are carried out by an ally or not."
I have accidentally deleted the very helpful comment from "Artist," posted January 8, 2009. I encourage this person to post again, and apologize for the clerical error on my part!
ReplyDeleteI have been able to recover Artist's comment, as follows:
ReplyDelete"Artist said...
"Laurence, I want to commend you for your blog, and for seeing through the unfair reporting of this whole Gaza incident. It is Hamas, not Israel who started it, and Hamas who deliberately targets innocent civilians, while Israel responds in an effort to defend her own people, trying hard to minimise civilian casualties (and warning them beforehand) while Hamas use their civilians as shields whilst hiding in schools, hospitals and civilian houses knowing that if a Palestinian is killed or injured, the world will blame Israel. The news reports always contain headings such as "Israel's offensive into Gaza" making Israel look like the aggressor. I guess that's why ignorant people like SusanE thinks the way she does. And, incidentally, Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as Palestinians in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern state of Israel. There has always been anti-semitism, and when terrorists like Hamas attack Israel, the anti-semites come out in droves, condemning Israel for trying to weed out the terrorists. No other country on earth would be condemned for defending her citizens the way Israel is."
January 8, 2009 3:59:00 CST AM
Thank you Artist.
ReplyDeleteI don't wish to minimize the complexity of this difficult situation. The indigenous peoples of this land have fought brutal battles for territory and survival from the time of our earliest historical records of the region - which was very bounteous in those times.
It seems to me perhaps to have been unwise to resurrect the Jewish state in this location at the time this occurred for many reasons.... Yet, even then, what were the alternatives? I do not believe the Jewish diaspora was welcomed anywhere at that time, and I certainly affirm the right of this brilliant, creative and perhaps chosen people to exist.
Given that Israel has now been re-established, modern sensibilities call for the simple acknowledgement of that fact, but that gesture is beyond the boundaries of the Islamic extremist movement.
And yes, the construction of military operational bases in civilian areas should be acknowledged as what it is - a war crime. I am appalled that no one can say this in public discourse!
hmm.. i am supporter of love and freedom. also one of those who condemns israeli actions from the comfort of atlanta georgia. they seem of a terrorist state nature [it seems ironical? the walls and camps..]. but im the type of person who is a first-generation american [nigerian heritage] whos friends include first generation mexicans, first-gen koreans, first-gen muslim malaysians, and an iranian jew.
ReplyDeleteit seems that a lot of people hate jews. i wonder why..