ISRAEL AND GAZA: WHO IS REALLY TO BLAME?
Feelings continue to run high over the recent deaths and injuries along the Israel-Gaza border. In view of the completely one-sided nature of the confrontation, it is easy to buy into the “brutal massacre of innocents” narrative being assiduously propagated by anti-Israel agitators. Emotional, knee-jerk reactions are nevertheless unhelpful when trying to understand how such a tragedy could have taken place in the first place and, more importantly, how they might be prevented from reoccurring in the future.
Amongst the hard questions that need to be asked is how much of the current outrage is motivated by a genuine concern for the best interests of the Palestinians and how much of it is simply driven by a visceral hatred of the Israeli state? Logically, one would expect that those who care for the well-being of a particular community would urge them to refrain from behaviour that is likely to have negative consequences for them. This, however, is not happening with regard to how the international community relates to the Palestinians, particularly those living in the Gaza Strip.
Since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 its people, under the totalitarian rule of the Islamist fundamentalist movement Hamas, have used their freedom to carry out continual attacks against Israel. They have fired over 12 000 missiles at Israeli towns, carrying out such attacks from densely populated residential areas so that when Israel retaliated, civilian casualties were inevitable.
A massive proportion of international aid to Gaza has been diverted into smuggling in weaponry and building scores of cross-border infiltration tunnels. Hamas has perfected the art of disguising militants as civilians for purposes of carrying out suicide terror attacks. Now, it is resorting to inciting thousands of civilians to try to force their way into Israel, knowing full well that no sovereign state could allow such an invasion from a hostile territory and would do whatever was necessary to prevent it.
Instead of continually excoriating Israel, shouldn’t the logical response to all of this be to denounce Hamas for its reckless, callous and self-destructive behaviour? If the welfare of the Palestinian people is what the many vocal critics of Israel truly care about, surely they should be imploring their leaders to cease sacrificing the lives of their followers in futile, self-defeating acts of aggression, abandon their unattainable aim of destroying a neighbouring country and concentrate on building a peaceful, functional democratic society?