By Michelle Moshelian
Tuesday, August 05, 2014
As an Israeli, I am 100 percent confident that Israel is
doing its utmost to get rid of Hamas while trying its hardest not to harm
civilians. Yet civilians have been killed, including children - the most
innocent victims of all. People all over the world are outraged, and rightly
so, when they see the images of devastation emerging from Gaza. I too am
outraged. But the problem is that most people, unlike me, are blaming the wrong
culprit - Israel. We pulled the trigger, but we are not the ones to blame.
So here’s a question to ponder for all you critics: If
Israel is doing such a poor job as you claim, then presumably you can do
better. Why aren’t you sending your troops to Gaza to eradicate Hamas in a
manner in which not a single Palestinian civilian gets hurt? If you fail to
even try, then do you deserve the right to criticize?
I could tell you all about the efforts Israel makes to
warns Palestinian civilians to get out of the vicinity of terrorists via
leaflets, telephone calls and roof knocking. I could tell you about how Hamas
calls for civilians to ignore these warnings. Don't believe me? Read for
yourself on the Palestinian government website. These messages are no longer
just in Arabic, sending one message to the world and one to its people. No more
of that pretense. This message is in English: "the ministry calling all
our people not to deal or pay attention to the psychological warfare carried
out by the occupation through rumors that broadcast across his media and
delivering publications and communications on the phones of citizens"
I could go on about human shields, urging you to question
why Hamas is launching rocket attacks from civilians area - schools hospitals
etc. Even the UN admitted finding rockets in one of their schools in Gaza (and
then apparently handed them over to Hamas but that is an entirely different
story). And now the UN have admitted three times to finding rockets in schools.
Fool me once, more fool you. Fool me twice, more fool me. Fool me three times
....
I could go on about ceasefires - how Israel has honored six
ceasefires, while the Palestinians have failed to honor any. I could ask why it
is that the apparent loser in this conflict is determined to continue? I could
then descend into the abomination as to whether dead Palestinian children on tv
screens is more valuable and important to Hamas than protecting those children.
I could rant on about the millions and millions of
dollars poured into the Palestinian coffers, questioning why this money has
been spent on acquiring rockets, and fattening up their leaders wallets,
instead of investing in their people's futures. (A cynic might even point out
that the money spent on rockets is spent investing in their people's futures.)
I could proudly tell you about the Iron Dome, how
fantastically brilliant it is, and how I post a thank you on their Facebook
page whenever I see that they announce that they have just knocked another
rocket out of the sky.
I could certainly tell you how grateful I am that my
country is doing its best to protect me from a vicious enemy. They built me
bomb shelters, an air-raid warning system, and a barrier that has proven
totally effective in stopping suicide bombers (and even that non-lethal method
of combatting terrorism was too much for the civilized world, but that too is
another story).
And yet the global media would still delight in
publishing the gruesome images, clamoring for newspaper sales and hits to their
websites, apparently completely oblivious to the fact that they are effectively
doing the PR job of one of the most evil terrorist regimes on this planet.
And the fact is that the images would be real. (Actually,
that isn't entirely true. Some would be from Syria and not Gaza, but again that
is another story. If you want to know about Pallywood, Google it.)
As I said, Israel is trying its hardest not to hurt
civilians, but apparently our best simply isn't good enough. No matter how hard
we try, and how many improvements we make, and how much Israeli society
agonizes over what we have to do, it is not enough. There are still too many
dead bodies.
So, could we do nothing? Absorb rockets fired without
retaliating? Well, we tried that, and that didn't work out too well. The
thousandth rocket that was fired at our civilians was the proverbial straw that
broke the camel's back.
Could we try another non-lethal method? How about making
sure that no rockets reach Gaza in the first place. Well, we tried that too,
but the fact is that some rockets did still reach Gaza, not to mention the fact
that the world was outraged by the blockade, which has totally proven itself to
be utterly essential. It needs to be a tighter blockade to make sure that no
rockets at all reach Gaza, not to be relaxed. (Sorry world if that upsets your
tv screen politics. Actually, I'm not sorry for that at all.)
Perhaps we could go the diplomatic method? Apparently,
not. The world insisted on giving money to the poor Palestinians without ever
holding them accountable or responsible for where the money was spent. Millions
and millions wasted.
Continuing on the diplomatic front, despite the blaringly
obvious neon signs that a Palestinian unity government including Hamas would be
bad news for everyone, the governments of the world embraced it with open arms
and open checkbooks and promises that if they behaved badly, they would
withdraw their support. Apparently, you forgot about that promise Mr. Obama,
and Mr. Cameron, so let this be a reminder. Surely you currently outraged
citizens of the world are aware of the fact that your own governments still
support the Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas. Surely you have
spoken out against this abomination? Surely you have seen through the
ridiculous claims that the Hamas entity in the Palestinian government is purely
technocratical. Even a computer spell-checker knows that the word
technocratical is absurd. A spell-checker has more sense than the leader of the
free world.
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