Israel left Gaza in 2005.
All 9,000 Jews were forcibly ethnically cleansed
in the name of "peace".
Many were born there.
Others lived there for decades.
All expelled.
Every settlement was destroyed.
If the Gazans wanted peace, prosperity and freedom,
it was there for the taking after 2005.
All they had to do was build a state, and leave Israel alone.
There would be no blockade, no wall, no checkpoints, no airstrikes.
Gazans would now be rich and free.
They could have a booming tourist industry
on the Mediterranean.
But Gazans don't want to be rich and free.
They want other things.
They want
land, honour, blood and vengeance.
These things will not make them happy, but that is what they want and what they pursue.
And so they kept attacking Israel, even though Israel was gone.
And so they fired thousands of rockets at Israel.
And so Israel had to keep coming back to bomb the aggressors.
And the western left, like the morons they are, encouraged all this.
All of this is over now, after the
Hamas massacre of Israelis in Oct 2023.
The window for Gazans is gone.
Everything they could have had is gone now.
Over 3,300 rockets fired from Gaza in just one month (8 July to 7 Aug 2014).
Why?
Why don't Gazans leave Israel alone?
From IDF.
See also
54 rockets fired from one school.
IDF media during the wars
During the various wars and clashes,
you can directly read
IDF and Israeli government media, videos and posts.
You do not have to rely on the second-hand distortions of your local media.
Consider this:
If Hamas stopped all violence, Israel would leave Gaza alone.
Checkpoints would be dismantled.
Trade would be free.
Investment would pour in.
Everything would be fine.
But this does not hold the other way round.
If Israel stopped all violence, Hamas would move in and exterminate the Israelis.
Eamonn McDonagh, 2009,
points out that Israel could destroy Hamas,
but won't (because Israel is civilized), and so the conflict will continue:
"Inflicting a defeat on Hamas of sufficient proportions to make Gaza as docile as Chechnya is well within Israel's military capabilities. It's not going to happen though. The Israeli public doesn't have the stomach for either the casualties on its own side or the mass slaughter of Palestinians that would be necessary to achieve it. Oh, and if you think that mass slaughter is exactly what Israel has been inflicting on Gaza in recent days, then you haven't been paying much attention to world history over recent decades.
Hamas exudes the will to destroy Israel and all who live in it from every last pore of its collective body. Israel has the means to crush Hamas but only the will to deliver hard jabs and the occasional uppercut. There's no chance of a knee in the groin followed by a few hard kicks to the head. Regardless of the forthcoming ceasefire, the conflict is thus certain to go on. This is to be both deplored and welcomed."
Daniel Finkelstein, January 7, 2009, on the only way this will ever end:
"there can be peace and prosperity at the smallest of prices. The Palestinians need only say that they will allow Israel to exist in peace. They need only say this tiny thing, and mean it, and there is pretty much nothing they cannot have.
Yet they will not say it. And they will not mean it. ... Again and again .. the Palestinians have been offered a nation state in a divided Palestine. And again and again they have turned the offer down, for it has always been more important to drive out the Jews than to have a Palestinian state. ...
There cannot be peace until this changes."
Claims of Israeli crimes
There were claims in 2009 that Israeli troops committed war crimes in Gaza:
Gaza report (The Goldstone report), Sept 2009,
by the UN "Human Rights" Council.
The
UN "Human Rights" Council at this time included
Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Nigeria, China, Cuba and Russia.
The report
claims that Israel targeted not Hamas but the entire Gaza population:
"the Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole
... as a whole they were premised on a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed not at the enemy but at the 'supporting infrastructure.' In practice, this appears to have meant the civilian population."
Islamic Jihad loves it:
"The Goldstone report must be fully supported and every opportunity to realize its recommendations seized".
In this,
Richard Kemp
points out some of the things Israel did to protect Palestinian civilian lives:
"When possible the IDF gave at least four hours' notice to civilians to leave areas targeted for attack."
"Attack helicopter pilots, tasked with destroying Hamas mobile weapons platforms, had total discretion to abort a strike if there was too great a risk of civilian casualties in the area. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were cancelled because of this."
"During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. This sort of task is regarded by military tacticians as risky and dangerous at the best of times. To mount such operations, to deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands, is to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable."
"In the latter stages of Cast Lead the IDF unilaterally announced a daily three-hour cease fire."
"The IDF dropped over 900,000 leaflets warning the population of impending attacks to allow them to leave designated areas. A complete air squadron was dedicated to this task alone."
"The IDF phoned over 30,000 Palestinian households in Gaza, urging them in Arabic to leave homes where Hamas might have stashed weapons or be preparing to fight."
He argues that, in an imperfect world,
"the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other Army in the history of warfare."
The Challenge: Find any war or conflict ever when
any Arab or Muslim army or group
has taken any steps at all
to protect enemy civilian lives.
Tell me about it here.
He actually expected that Hamas would be interested in his allegations of war crimes committed by them,
and he is shocked that they are not:
"our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report. ... Israel has done this to a significant degree; Hamas has done nothing.
Some have suggested that it was absurd to expect Hamas,
an organization that has a policy to destroy the state of Israel,
to investigate what we said were serious war crimes. It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas would do so, especially if Israel conducted its own investigations. At minimum I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case.""Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza",
while Hamas has
"not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel".
I'm sorry, a grown man in 2009 expecting Hamas to investigate attacks on Jews!
Has Hamas ever launched an investigation into the killing of Jews?
Ever?
Why on earth would Hamas investigate attacks on Israelis?
This indicates the kind of disconnect from reality that could also allow him accuse Israel
of targeting civilians.
For years he libelled Israel.
And now he finally understands that in IDF actions
"civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy."
And you did not know this before 2009 because?
Did you know anything about Israel and Hamas before 2009?
Have you noticed, for example, that Israel is a democracy and Gaza is not?
Have you noticed that Israelis believe in secular human rights for all
and Gazans believe in Islamic supremacy and sharia?
Do you know anything?
Or is all this still new to you?
Melanie Phillips
is unimpressed, and
describes him as
"at best an abject idiot and at worst a moral and judicial bankrupt."
Charles Krauthammer, 2 January 2009:
" 'Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.'
...
Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis .. deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.
...
At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible - also on both sides."
The world screamed that Israel slaughtered 40 women and children at a Gaza school.
Probably most people still believe this.
IDF report
says 12 Palestinians were killed - 9 Hamas fighters and 3 noncombatants.
It also says the IDF was returning fire after coming under attack
from Hamas beside the school,
and its shells did not hit the school compound.
Aftermath
Was the offensive a success?
Hamas were taken by surprise by the Israeli reaction.
Captured Hamas fighter:
"Hamas took a gamble. We thought, at worst Israel will come and do something from the air - something superficial. They'll come in and go out. We never thought that we would reach the point where fear will swallow the heart and the feet will want to flee. You [Israel] are fighting like you fought in '48. What got into you all of a sudden?"
Victor Davis Hanson, January 6, 2009, points out that deterrence does work:
"Note not just the relative silence of Fatah ...
but the quiet from Hezbollah in Lebanon. One would think Hezbollah would now pile on by launching missiles in solidarity with their brothers in Hamas."
Some missiles have been launched from Lebanon, though Hezbollah denies it was them.
Hanson's point stands that no one (Fatah, Hezbollah, or any of the Islamic countries)
is formally coming to the aid of Hamas militarily.
Rather (as in the 2006 Hezbollah war)
they are just demanding a "ceasefire".
Hamas has wanted war for years, and now they have one,
their only strategy is to whine and complain and demand a ceasefire.
Victor Davis Hanson, January 14, 2009:
"For all the talk of Israeli failure, they are doing to Hamas what they did to Hezbollah in 2006 and Fatah in 2002. And in each of these respective cases there was a cessation in offensive attacks following an incredible degree of material damage.
...
[Israel] are gambling that they can establish another quid-pro-quid protocol in which a Hamas or Hezbollah understands that every time they wish to start another round of killing and fighting, they will kill only a few Israelis at a cost of hundreds of their own and billions in material losses".
Rocket attacks in 2009: 566 (of which 406 were during the Jan 2009 conflict, and 160 later in the year).
Yearly breakdown of all projectile fire towards Israeli territory, 2002 to 2009.
Israel leaves Gaza: 2005. Jews cleansed from Gaza. Rocket fire does not stop.
Gaza war: Dec 2008 to Jan 2009.
See full size.
From IDF.
The 2008-09 war calmed things down for a while.
But it didn't last.
Hamas rocket fire in 2012 provoked
Israel to respond again.
Hamas have no meaning to their existence other than killing Jews.
They cannot, will not, ever build a decent state in Gaza.
They are not interested in ever doing that.
Not until the last Jew on earth is dead.
(And not even then.)
Same story as in the 2008-09 war.
Hamas whines about being attacked, but they won't stop the rocket fire.
Israel tries to hit Palestinian government / terrorist targets.
Hamas tries to hit random Israeli civilians, and is
proud of it.
Israel tries to avoid Palestinian civilians.
Israel drops leaflets
to warn civilians of strikes (thus giving the enemy warning too).
In contrast,
Hamas tries to get Palestinian civilians killed.
Hamas fires rockets from dense civilian areas, surrounded by civilian human shields.
Again, in this postmodern warfare, dead Palestinian civilians are good news for Hamas, and good press for them.
Hamas even
parades civilians they themselves killed.
The Israel-Hamas War and the Suicide Strategy: How Arab Forces Expect to Launch Losing Wars and Still Win, Barry Rubin, November 19, 2012.
"One of the most important things to understand about how the Middle East works is what I'll call the suicide strategy. It can be described as follows:
I will start a war that I cannot win in order to create a situation where the other side wrecks my infrastructure and kills my people. Then I will lose militarily but win the battle. How? By the following means ...
This strategy has often worked against a Western adversary or Israel. It won't work against fellow Arabs or Iran because those forces couldn't care less how much damage and how many civilian casualties they inflict. Their mass media are under a large element of state control and they are not responsive to public opinion."
Ahmed Jabari
with his victim
Gilad Shalit
in Oct 2011.
Shalit was held hostage in Gaza
for 5 years, from June 2006 to Oct 2011.
Israel killed Jabari in a targeted airstrike on 14 Nov 2012.
Photo by Reuters.
From here.
The depravity of the western left:
The Guardian, the most
pro-jihad newspaper
in the English-speaking world,
publishes Hamas yet again, 18 Nov 2012.
They have published Hamas
many times before.
Infographic compares military hardware in Gaza and Israel.
See full size.
From here.
This
never asks the obvious question.
Which is: If Hamas had these weapons, would one Jew be left alive?
The tragic death of the child of BBC stringer
Jihad Misharawi
in Gaza in the Nov 2012 conflict
received global publicity.
Israel was universally blamed for killing the child of a BBC journalist.
However, it later emerged that the child was in the company of his uncle, a Hamas terrorist.
And the UN says the child was killed by Hamas rocket fire.
But few will hear this,
compared to the millions who saw the original report.
Yet again we see the bias of the western media in covering the conflict.
Western journalists are sceptics about the claims of their own democratic governments
- but credulous fools when it comes to the claims of third world thugs like Hamas.
Max Fisher in the Washington Post, 15 Nov 2012,
entirely
fails to get the story behind the photo.
This was a front page photo for the Washington Post.
Fisher
reported at length on the
death of the child.
He included pictures of Misharawi's burnt home, and the death was blamed on Israel.
Jihad Misharawi's brother Ahmed Misharawi was also killed.
However, it later emerged that
Ahmed Misharawi was a Hamas terrorist.
Above he is wrapped in the Hamas flag at his funeral.
His brother
Jihad Misharawi,
who, remember, was employed by the BBC in Gaza,
said at his funeral:
"Thanks to Allah, the Lord of the Universe, who chose him [Ahmed] to be a martyr, from all the people. What was done by the Jews is a shame for the entire Umma [Islamic nation], a shame for the West, a shame for the Arabs, who are silent."
The IDF
apparently
said that
"a terror site in the vicinity of the Mashrawi house had been targeted on November 14th and that the known terrorist Ahmed Masharawi was injured."
See more.
The UN Human Rights Council, incredibly, said in Mar 2013 that the child was actually killed by
Hamas rocket fire.
Yet again, the war stops with Hamas still in power.
Hamas will receive billions in aid for "reconstruction" (i.e. re-arming).
There will be another war.
If you believe the left and the imagery in the media,
the war seemed to consist entirely of Israel bombing civilians
from the air.
And yet
66 highly-trained, well-armed IDF troops
were killed in combat.
Question for the left:
Who killed the 66 IDF troops?
Elder of Ziyon
points out core mistakes the media makes:
Mistake #1: Assuming that all Gaza casualties are the result of Israeli airstrikes.
Mistake #2: Assuming that Gaza casualties and damage are the direct result of Israeli airstrikes.
Mistake #3: Believing that victims are civilian when they are not.
Israel uses
"roof knocking"
to warn the enemy of an attack!
It does this to save civilian lives,
even if it also helps fighters escape.
Does any other army in the world do this?
Why not?
Ironically, of course,
"roof knocking" often encourages Gaza civilians to gather on the roof as human shields.
The sometimes-good comedian and satirist
Jon Stewart
actually attacks Israel for engaging in "roof knocking"
rather than seeing it as a sign of morality.
IDF dropped 410,000 warning leaflets in this war alone.
Also used text messages and phone calls to warn civilians before airstrikes.
How many countries do that?
Why not?
Israel May Be Raising The Moral Standards Of Warfare, Will Saletan, July 12, 2014.
Notes that we shouldn't expect any morals from the Islamic jihad:
"Hamas rejects the whole idea that it's wrong to target civilians."
An extraordinary war:
A conflict where side X tries desperately to get side X's civilians killed.
Challenge for critics of Israel:
Please explain what the IDF should do to stop thousands of rocket launches.
Please give the IDF concrete ideas for how to stop the thousands of rockets without harming any civilians.
The IDF would love to know how to do this.
There are a million critics of Israel, but none who explain what the IDF should do
(that it is not doing already).
Note that in your plan,
no rocket launch site can be immune from attack indefinitely.
If there is a single rocket launch site in Gaza - in a hospital or school or mosque -
that is totally immune from attack,
then what is to stop Hamas from launching rockets from that spot non-stop, 24/7?
In fact, in general,
there is nothing Israel can do
to stop Hamas rocket fire.
As I argue:
Everything Israel does will lead to rocket fire. Including doing things Hamas wants.
Reports the obvious - that Hamas only allows certain types of western reporters in Gaza.
I could never report from there (or even visit) for example.
Notes that Hamas is using Shifa hospital as a HQ:
"We know that downstairs [in Shifa hospital] there is a Hamas command and control center and that Hamas leaders are hiding there. No reporter is allowed to go anywhere downstairs. They're only allowed to work upstairs to take pictures of casualties".
Hamas threats against journalists.
Threats force Wall Street Journal reporters to delete tweets.
Media intimidated not to ever film the many Hamas fighters.
Italian journalist says he can speak once he is
"Out of Gaza far from Hamas retaliation".
Spanish journalist:
"we did see Hamas people there launching rockets, they were close to our hotel,
but if ever we dared pointing our camera on them they would .. kill us."
The unsatisfactory ceasefire that leaves Hamas in power:
Max Boot, 27 Aug 2014,
thinks there was no option:
"as Jonathan Tobin and other realists have pointed out,
the cost of seeking victory is simply too high for the Israeli public to stomach.
Sure, Israelis may want to wipe out Hamas; who doesn't? But once they saw what it actually took to accomplish that objective, they would likely turn against the military operation just as they previously turned against the 1982 invasion of Lebanon which was designed to eradicate the PLO.
...
While it's easy to say that the IDF should "defeat" or "destroy " Hamas, actually accomplishing this task would involve a painful and protracted occupation of the Gaza Strip that few Israelis want to undertake. Gur writes: "The IDF believes it could take years to 'pacify' such a crowded, politically hostile territory
...
Netanyahu's judgment clearly is that a ceasefire which restores the status quo ante bellum is the best Israel can do right now, and he is surely right."
Max Boot re-tweeted my reply:
"Sadly, you make sense. Also means there will be another little Gaza war in 2017, and 2020, and ..."
Hamas government site orders its people not to listen to Israeli warnings, July 2014.
Hamas wants its people dead.
The IDF
tries not to kill civilians.
Hamas and Gazans know this.
This is why they behave like this!
Breakdown of Gaza deaths
strongly indicates that Israel is trying hard to target Hamas fighters.
Otherwise, why so many men?
Why so many young men?
As
John Connolly
says:
"Basically, if Israel was largely killing civilians in Gaza through indiscriminate bombing, one would expect the casualties to be a fair reflection of the Gazan population. Around 50% would be male, and 50% female. Around 40% would have to be under the age of 14. But this is not the case, in the current war or the last."
Elder of Ziyon
compares Gaza casualties and demographics.
Incredibly, they do not match.
Can any anti-Israel person explain why they do not match?
As Elder of Ziyon says:
"Keep in mind that these statistics include many people who were killed by Hamas rockets that fell short or secondary explosions from booby trapped houses and the like. The victims of those are far more likely to reflect a distribution in line with the demographics, so a very high percentage of those killed by Hamas actions would be children.
If anyone actually objectively researched the actual number of deaths that can be attributed to the IDF - a highly unlikely scenario in Gaza - then the difference between the demographics and actual dead in Gaza would be even more striking."
Just as in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc before 1989,
Gazans cannot tell Westerners
what they really think about Hamas and its endless wars
- or they will be shot.
Only Gazans who agree with Hamas
will appear on western TV screens.
On the one hand, it shows that Gazans are the most enthusiastic supporters
of suicide bombing of civilians
in the Islamic world.
Only 21 percent say it is never justified.
On the other hand, it shows Gazans unhappy with Hamas because of the war it started.
63 percent have an unfavourable view of Hamas,
only 35 percent favourable.
The main point is that,
for those Gazans who don't like Hamas,
there is nothing they can do about it.
There are no elections.
There is no Leader of the Opposition.
There is no Opposition, or Parliament.
You can't criticise Hamas in letters to the paper, or blogs.
You can't hold demos.
Like the Eastern Bloc before 1989,
Gazans who don't like Hamas
cannot speak.
Gaza Youth "Manifesto for Change", 2011.
Youth angry with Hamas protest.
How? Online. Anonymously.
Do they hold a demo?
Of course not.
They don't want Hamas to kill them.
The "Gaza Youth" are anti-Israel tossers.
But that's not important.
What's important is they are not free to protest against Hamas because Hamas would shoot them.
Real life in Gaza:
Quotes from
Gazans Speak Out: Hamas War Crimes, Mudar Zahran, September 19, 2014.
This is what many Gazans think - but cannot say or they will be shot by Hamas.
How Hamas works hard to get Gazans killed:
"The Israeli army sends warnings to people [Gazans] to evacuate buildings before an attack. The Israelis either call or send a text message. Sometimes they call several times to make sure everyone has been evacuated. Hamas's strict policy, though, was not to allow us to evacuate. Many people got killed, locked inside their homes by Hamas militants. Hamas's official Al-Quds TV regularly issued warnings to Gazans not to evacuate their homes. Hamas militants would block the exits to the places residents were asked to evacuate."
Why won't Hamas let the people move to safe areas?
The answer:
"if all the people were allowed to evacuate their homes, they all would have ended up in a certain area in Gaza. If that happened, it would have made the rest of Gaza empty of civilians, and the Israelis would have been able to hit Hamas without worrying about civilians in all those empty areas. Hamas wanted civilians all over the place to confuse the Israelis and make their operations more difficult."
In fact,
Israel's decency actually encourages Hamas to fire from civilian areas.
"Hamas fires from civilian areas for a good reason: The Israelis call the civilians and give them ten minutes to evacuate. This gives Hamas time to fire another rocket and run away."
The most bitter-sweet quote:
"We miss the days when we were able to work inside Israel and make good money. We miss the security and calm Israel provided when it was here."
I want Palestinians to be rich and happy.
I want them living in peace and able to work in Israel.
But they didn't want this.
They wanted this "land and honour" jihad bullshit.
And the western left encouraged them.
Here we go again.
Instead of building a state, Hamas does this.
Hamas-organised jihadi mobs storm the border fence,
trying to break it down so they can kill Jewish families in their homes beyond the fence.
The IDF protects innocent life and uses deadly force to stop the jihadi mobs.
Over 100 jihadi rioters are killed trying to storm Israel.
The Palestinians sell this as the
"Great March of Return",
where Palestinians will march back to the houses in Israel their ancestors lived in.
(And then either offer tea and cakes, or kill everyone.)
Fadi Abu Shammalah, 27 Apr 2018,
defends the idea of the march:
"The march is proving that my generation has no intention of abandoning our people's dreams."
Which is a tragedy.
Only by abandoning these stupid dreams (of blood, soil, honour and revenge)
do his people have a future.
Of course, in reality the whole thing, as usual, is about killing Jews.
The rioters are frustrated
Jew-haters angry that they cannot kill Jews in Gaza, since the Jews have left.
They are trying to storm the border fence so they can kill Jews living in the houses beyond the border.
See screenshots of Palestinian social media calling for the killing and abduction of local Jews
here
and here
and here
and here.
See video.
Daniel Sugarman is a thoughtful pro-Israel British Jew:
He wrote a
piece on May 15, 2018,
disturbed by the IDF tactics and the death toll.
Two days later, he wrote an
apology on May 17, 2018,
when he realised the mobs were largely jihadists,
and probably nothing short of live fire could have stopped them.
Kudos to him for saying he was wrong.
Both pieces are worth reading.
Israelis do not want Gazans to die.
They want Gazans to be safe, but leave Israel alone.
Because they have such a different value system to us,
entire jihadi families came to the riots.
Parents brought their small children to a day out watching the violent jihadi riots from close quarters.
These are people who value "the struggle" and "martyrdom" more than they value their children's safety.
What a contrast to the Palestinian rules of engagement, which would be: "Kill all the Jews."
The world complains about the many rioters who get killed.
But
I have a fantastic solution for how to stop the violence.
How to ensure that no more Palestinians are injured or killed.
That no more Gazan mothers grieve.
Here is my fantastic solution:
Stay away from the fence.
MEMRI compilation:
Gaza "Return March" Clips - Calls For Jihad & Martyrdom, Chants Of Anti-Semitic Slogans And Incitement.
See Vimeo.
Hamas leader
on the border protests:
"We will tear out their hearts from their bodies!"
The armed jihadi "protesters" break through the fence, and are excited to be on their way to kill local Jewish families.
Apparently what is being shouted is:
"Khaybar, Khaybar! Oh Jews, the army of Muhammad is returning."
Rather than:
"Remember Khaybar! Oh Jews, we're coming to slaughter you!"
But the meaning is the same.
The
Battle of Khaybar
is about the defeat and slaughter of the Jews,
and the rape of their women.
Blood-crazed mob attacking the Gaza fence, Jan 2019.
This mob is probably one mile away from Jewish families.
"The Terror of Return".
2018 video about UNRWA and terror indoctrination,
by The Center for Near East Policy Research
(banned from YouTube).
0:52 sums up the aim of the Gaza border riots:
"to frighten the Jews so that they will run away. To kill Jews."
Jan 2019 update: "At least 80 percent of Palestinian fatalities in Gaza "Return Marches" are terrorists".
Hamas leader
Fathi Hammad, 12 July 2019, says Hamas has built a new factory for suicide vests for Palestinians
to storm the Gaza-Israel border and blow up Israeli families.
It is certainly baffling why Israel protects its border!
He also said
that every Jew in the world must be killed:
"Oh, you seven million Palestinians abroad, enough warming up! There are Jews everywhere! We must attack every Jew on planet Earth - we must slaughter and kill them, with Allah's help."
Unpublished letter
Letter by 51 Irish politicians, Irish Times, 28 Oct 2018, calling for sanctions on Israel because of
Israel defending itself against the Gaza border mobs.
The letter ends with a smear about
"Israel's decades of colonial occupation, apartheid and war crimes".
I wrote a letter to the Irish Times in reply.
It was not published:
Sir
The letter of 28 Oct ("Israel and arms trade") from 51 Irish politicians calling for sanctions on Israel is missing one thing. Any explanation of what Israel should do in response to the mass attack on their border fence with Gaza. Is Israel meant to let these people in? Israel is convinced these people want to murder Israeli families who are living only one mile away from the fence. Many attackers have said that is indeed their goal. Sample quotes:
"Oh Jews, we're coming to slaughter you!" and "We will tear out their hearts from their bodies!" and
"200 meters from the fence .. only 15 families live there. Attack them with knives!"
So what is Israel meant to do? If these 51 politicians have any concrete suggestion for keeping local Israeli families safe, I would like to hear it. But they do not seem to recognise that is even an issue.
In 2021, Arabs and
Westerners got angry about
a minor property dispute in Sheikh Jarrah
in Jerusalem
between some Jews and some Arabs, involving property ownership and rent due,
that had been going on for decades.
There was no quick victory for the Jewish side. They needed multiple trips to court over decades.
When the Arabs finally lost in court in 2021,
Western politicians said Israel should overrule the courts
and grant victory to the Arabs.
Israel was lectured across the world
about this minor property case,
of the sort that happens every day in every country.
The Arabs
were furious and rioted at the al-Aqsa Mosque.
Westerners then got angry about the Israeli police policing the riots.
And then, when Hamas started firing thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians,
forcing half the population into shelters,
the Westerners went quiet.
As if this was normal,
and the other thing about the property and rent was the real outrage.
When Israel carried out airstrikes against rocket positions, then of course
Westerners got angry again.
Richard Kemp, May 16, 2021, explains the progress of the war.
"Hamas is no match for the IDF and could be quickly and much more cheaply defeated by blunt and crushing military force were it not for one thing - the Israeli need to minimise loss of civilian life. Hamas know that. They know they cannot prevail over the IDF and have no intention of trying. Their entire strategy is to attack Israeli population centres ... aimed at luring IDF counter attacks that will kill their own civilians in order to vilify and isolate Israel around the world ... With human shields as the fundamental element of every operation, Hamas are the first "army" in history to use the lives of their own civilian population as weapons of war."
Senior Hamas official
Fathi Hammad
in an address on 7 May 2021,
when these clashes began:
"People of Jerusalem, we want you to cut off the heads of the Jews with knives.
... Buy a knife, sharpen it .. and just cut off [their heads].
...
'You shall find the strongest in enmity towards the believers to be the Jews and the polytheists.'
The Jews have spread corruption .. and their moment of reckoning has come."
That, complete with the little quote from
Quran 5:82,
sums up the world of Hamas.
They are fighters for jihad.
You think they want to build a state, and make Gaza prosperous?
That is the last thing they want to do.
This from
Elder of Ziyon
in May 2021, just after the Hamas rocket fire started, sums up the mystery of people's interest in the Palestinians.
They got angry about rent demands.
Then silent about rocket attacks.
Could anything better show what is wrong with Westerners' brains when they attack Israel?
When Israel carried out airstrikes against rocket positions, then
Westerners got interested again.
It is amazing how almost every Western "pacifist" throws their values in the bin as soon as Palestinians start violence.
They come up with some tortured chain of cause and effect from "grievance" to war
in order to defend or excuse some completely unnecessary war.
Their "pacifism" and "peace" symbols mean nothing.
Look at the above.
The icing on the cake
is the "peace" symbol in the apologetics for a completely unnecessary and insanely violent war.
From "Mattie Lisbon" in May 2021.
"Mattie Lisbon" of course blocked me.
The amazing, life-saving Iron Dome
in action in May 2021.
About 3400 reached Israel, but about 90% were stopped by Iron Dome.
Only about 350 landed in Israel.
Only 60-70 of these hit population centres.
The rest landed in open areas.
So Hamas rockets hit Gaza more than they hit Israel.
It is possible that much of the Gaza civilian dead were caused by Hamas rockets.
Analysis, 27 June 2021, estimates that 91 Gazans were killed by Hamas rockets.
And every single one was wrongly blamed on Israel.
31 people killed because they were in the same house as a terrorist target.
21 were identified as being killed by Gaza rockets.
3 others were likely killed by Gaza rockets.
(Or 70 others, according to the previous analysis.)
The New York Times did an emotional
front page
in May 2021 with photos of the children alleged to be killed by Israel.
See wider image.
The graphic has all sorts of problems.
It includes:
(1) Israeli children killed by Hamas,
(2) Palestinian children killed by Hamas,
(3) children killed in the company of terrorist fathers,
and even
(4) teenage terrorist fighters.
I also must have missed the New York Times front page of all the children killed by Obama's air strikes on terrorists
over the years.
Is it one rule for Obama and another rule for Israel?
Because the Islamist way of war
has no morals or ethics,
anything goes in warfare.
Especially against an army that does have ethics.
The other army's ethics can be exploited.
It is hard for Israel to fight against
The Islamist way of war.
Using hospitals, schools, churches:
Hamas leaders hiding in basement of Israel-built hospital in Gaza, 12 Jan 2009.
"senior Hamas officials found refuge in the hospital basement because they know Israel would not target it, due to the patients in the upper floors."
Try doing that with the Nazis!
Or the Soviets, or the Chinese,
or Axis Japan.
Or indeed any Islamic army ever.
IDF soldiers report how the jihadis fight:
"Parents of wounded soldiers ...
said soldiers have repeatedly seen young children in Sheijaya, Gaza, be sent out into the streets with guns to try to attack IDF troops.
One parent reported that terrorists had run at IDF soldiers with a gun in one hand and a baby in the other".
Sums it up:
"If Hamas fired from rural areas in Gaza they would be wiped out quickly, this is why they shoot from civilian areas.
Terrorism 101: Cowardice."
"a man about 40 years old walked out of a house nearby, and then I saw that he was holding a woman, and he was using her as a shield.
...
I'd seen videos at home, I'd heard about it on the news, and I had believed it, but now I was seeing it with my own eyes. And I can see very clearly that the woman doesn't want to be there and he's pulling her with him. Only after he finally let go of the woman could we neutralize him."
Imagine if an Israeli was holding an Israeli woman as a human shield while he approached an armed Hamas fighter.
How well do you think that would work?
The Hamas way of war.
From Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry, Jan 2009.
Palestinians fire at Israel
from UNRWA primary school in Gaza.
Video from Oct 2007.
Hamas admits using human shields, Feb 2008.
"the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking.
For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land.
The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children.
This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine."
Hamas fire at Israel from a school during the Jan 2009 conflict.
Hamas uses children as human shields, Jan 2009.
And more.
Hamas jihadi in the Jan 2009 conflict
calls for local children to come and help him escape from a building
without being fired on from the air.
He leaves
using the children as human shields.
Again, Hamas themselves know how decent the Israelis are.
Hamas know the Israelis are morally superior to Hamas themselves.
And again, the children's parents don't give a toss about their safety,
but allow them wander round a war zone helping jihadis.
Hamas fighters jump in an ambulance to escape,
probably aided by Gaza medical staff.
July 2014.
See also Hamas using an ambulance in Gaza in 2004.
Copy here.
"Hamas Terrorist Tactics in the Gaza Strip".
The IDF explains how Hamas fights.
Posted Nov 2012.
"More Palestinians die than Israelis!"
Sure.
According to leftist logic, then, Germany must be the good guys.
These are
total of all deaths.
Every Gaza war since 2005.
Another version.
This was Gaza 2005 to 2023.
All of this is over now, after the Hamas massacre of Israelis in 2023.
This guy will now no longer exist.
"Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas!"
- Popular chant in pro-Hamas demos.
See many examples.
"Palestinians must resort to resistance no matter how costly it is, until Palestine is free and Israel is destroyed."
- Hamas leader Khaled Meshal explains the plan,
1 Oct 2011.
