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| Source: The Growing Reach of Hamas' Rockets | New York Times |
While many the world over call on Israel to be 'nicer' to the people in Gaza, Israel is more intent than ever to ensure safety for her citizens. While some may call the Israeli response to Palestinian / Gazan / Hamas / Islamic terror groups' terrorist attacks 'disproportionate,' or too much or unfair, I am left wondering what other options Israel has. I also fail to see the logic in Hamas' actions, they only seem to sabotage the Palestinian cause by their insistence on fighting instead of talking.
Let me be very, very frank. Is it right that innocents die? No. Is it right that innocents are scarred by events for the rest of their lives? No. Is it right that children live in fear and near-constant stress? No. Is it right that families lose loved ones? NO. No, NO, no, not at all right. None of it is right, especially because if things had gone differently, those same fighters might have been friends or neighbours. Jews and Muslims might have lived together in peace, if only things were different. Or is that just wishful thinking?
I vividly remember televised images from ten to fifteen (or so) years ago of Palestinian youths throwing stones at Israeli tanks, clashes between the two sides, youths with stones attacking the Israel Defense Forces. The IDF soldiers trained and protected, the youths angry and screaming, it was clear to see who the Bad Guys were, who the Good Guys were. Or so I thought.
Watching those images (and others like them) and being influenced by what people around me and even the television show hosts / news anchors said about the 'poor Palestinians' and the 'bad Israelis', I too felt sorry for the Palestinians and disliked the Israelis. It was that black and white for me. While I didn't know much more than what the propaganda machine told me, images of scared women and crying children won me over.
Today I am an adult. Those youths I saw on television back in 2000 or 2006 or whenever it may have been, I wondered about what happened to them not long ago. And then I realised. The youths who threw stones at tanks and soldiers ten or fifteen years ago are now old enough to be the adult men behind rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, old enough to be the masked Hamas gunmen we see operating in Gaza. While Israel acts in self-defence to protect itself from near-constant rocket attacks, threatened genocide and disruptions to daily life, the other side seems to want to lob rockets over the border, not caring where they land or hit, seems to just keep fighting and aggravating and sabotaging any effort at a true and lasting peace.
Did Hamas think they were strong enough to do real damage to Israel? Did they think that their friends over at the Islamic State would come to their aid? Did they think that their inhuman and evil ways would go unnoticed? Did they think the West would simply swallow their propaganda and lies?
Or was Hamas afraid that the world would forget them in the face of more and more groups like it gaining power and influence across the Middle East? Did Hamas leadership decide to force Israel to play the Bad Guy one last time before the world would see the true evil of radical Islam through the barbarous, cruel actions of groups like ISIS and those like it? As if everything that came before it (the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood etcetera) wasn't bad enough already?
My take on Hamas' thinking...
Man 01: "Wait, before the Islamic State executes people by the hundreds if not thousands, let's first ensure that the world will remember us"
Man 02: "But how will we do that?"
Man 01: "We step up attacks against Israel, fire at fellow Palestinians and try to aim our rockets at Jerusalem, the city we love so much. Then we put a bunch of innocents in the line of fire and hide far, far away from the fighting when the IDF comes calling."
Man 02: "But won't the world think we're just as bad as all the other radical Muslim groups out there?"
Man 01: "Oh, that won't matter. We are. But they'll all blame Israel for a problem only caused by our refusal to act like sensible adults. We just need to release enough images of dead children and weeping mothers for the world to see things the way we do."