Why the Israeli people have finally had enough

From: Thomas Braun <[email protected]>

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/why-the-israeli-people-have-finally-had-enough-1592022.html

Enough is enough: An Israeli man stands on the scene after a rocket fired by
Palestinian militants in Gaza landed near the town of Sderot

By Ian O'Doherty

Monday January 05 2009

  So, it's genocide now, is it? Or is it actually another holocaust,
something which one typically restrained Palestinian analyst described as
"worse than Hitler <http://www.independent.ie/topics/Adolf+Hitler>'s war
against the Jews"?

Are we watching the ethnic cleansing of an entire people? Are we witnessing
the deliberate eradication of a race?

Well, no actually, we're not.

Yet the conventional dinner party wisdom which we've had to put up with in
the media, both here in Ireland
<http://www.independent.ie/topics/Ireland>and generally across
Britain <http://www.independent.ie/topics/United+Kingdom>, is that somehow
Israel <http://www.independent.ie/topics/Israel> is the aggressor in the
rapidly worsening situation in
Gaza<http://www.independent.ie/topics/Gaza+Strip>.

Footage of air strikes with the ensuing photogenic explosions and dramatic
plumes of smoke, quickly followed by clips of collapsed buildings and
enraged mourners, makes far better copy than actually looking at the reasons
why Israel has done what it's done.

Anyone who devotes only a cursory glance at the news, both print and
television, would be forgiven for thinking that, out of spite, might and
malice, Israel has decided to destroy the Palestinian people.

The problem with that conclusion -- and it's not something you're going to
learn from the BBC<http://www.independent.ie/topics/British+Broadcasting+Corporation>and
most other outlets -- is that, contrary to the currently popular
belief,
Israel is actually acting with a ridiculous degree of restraint.

Over the last couple of years, thousands of rockets have been landing on
Israeli soil and, finally, they have had enough.

But behind that statistic there is a human dimension which tends to be
rather ignored.

I know many people in the southern Israeli town of
Sderot<http://www.independent.ie/topics/Sderot>and what is remarkable
about their stories is not the number or make of
rockets which have fallen on them on a daily basis for years, but the
psychological carnage this wreaked upon them.

One woman freely admitted to me that she hasn't had a proper night's sleep
in more than two years as she and her family now basically live in their
bomb shelter and it's hard to tell who she hates more -- the Muslim
terrorists of Hamas <http://www.independent.ie/topics/Hamas> or the Israeli
government which she thinks has abandoned them.

It's a common feeling amongst residents of southern Israeli towns who have
been the silent victims of a long campaign of violence, intimidation and
murder carried out by Hamas. And now, finally, that the Israelis have said
that enough is enough, they are somehow meant to be the aggressors?

There are people of good conscience on both sides of this argument, but one
of the main problems in this debate lies in the cowardly tendency of the
Western media to apply equivalence to both sides.

Thus, Hamas is seen to be as legitimate a government as the Israelis, and
its rocket attacks across the border from Gaza are seen as being part of a
yet another, intractable, interminable Middle Eastern dispute.

There's just one problem with that approach -- it's completely wrong.

Hamas is a fundamentalist Islamic organisation intent on the eradication of
the state of Israel and all its citizens; a violent fascist regime that
allows honour killings and the execution of homosexuals to continue in its
sphere of influence. Bankrolled by Iran<http://www.independent.ie/topics/Iran>,
it manages to make even
Hezbollah<http://www.independent.ie/topics/Hezbollah>look like a
moderate organisation.

But Hamas is clever.

As a friend of mine from Sderot pointed out, one of its favourite tactics is
to launch Qassams from Palestinian schoolyards -- while the schools are
still in session.

Hamas does this, you see, knowing that the IDF can't immediately strike back
(they can vector a rocket launch site within 90 seconds) because the last
thing the Israelis need is footage of a devastated Palestinian school with
dead kids.

And, over the last week, we have seen carefully manipulated footage of dead
civilians, with the fact that they were effectively used as human shields
conveniently ignored. When Israel pulled out of Gaza -- ironically, the last
battalion of IDF
troops<http://www.independent.ie/topics/Israeli+Defense+Forces>to
leave Gaza contained some people from Sderot -- they were acceding to
international and internal pressure. The doves on the Left said it was to
prove to Palestinians that they wanted to give Palestinians independence,
the hawks on the Right -- and there are some truly scary right-wingers in
Israel, even as ardent a supporter of the country as I am will freely admit
that -- prophesied that it would lead to carnage.

And, lo and behold, virtually as soon as the last jeep left Gaza the rockets
started. And then the blockade began, and the whole damn mess started all
over again.

But there's a bigger picture here, something which Israelis have been trying
to broadcast to the world, but which, thanks to their spectacular inability
to accurately and sympathetically portray their point of view, has not been
properly transmitted. It's this -- Israel is the front line of the war
between democracy and Islamic fascism.

Would you rather live in a society with a free press, equal rights for women
-- and anyone who knows an Israeli woman will know that they're not easily
suppressed, anyway -- equal rights for gay people and a proud and stubborn
belief in the right of the individual to lead their life in the way that
they see fit or would you rather exist in a society where women who dare to
speak their mind are executed, where gay people are not just shunned but
murdered and where having a dissenting thought marks you out for death?

The civilian deaths in Gaza are to be mourned, and anyone who says otherwise
is reprehensible. But in a sick and twisted irony, they are mourned more by
Israelis than by Hamas, who know that every dead Palestinian kid is worth
another piece of propaganda.

Here in the West, where we share the same values as Israel, we need to start
standing shoulder with this tiny oasis of democracy in a vast desert of
savagery.

To do otherwise is moral cowardice of the most repugnant kind.