Anil Madan
Africa-Press – Mauritius. In Israel: A massacre.An atrocity. Music at a festival interrupted by the staccato of gunfire and crumbling lives of young people shot to death. A massacre at a village – people shot to death in cold blood.
In Gaza: A siege.No power. No water. No food. Life itself interrupted by the staccato of bombs and crumbling buildings. Precision guided bombs causing imprecise and wanton damage. Is that killing in cold blood, or are we forbidden to suggest such a thing when a nation attacked is entitled to retaliate.
When does entitlement to retaliate against the perpetrators become justification for destroying innocent civilians who have no say in where Hamas entrenches itself?
On Saturday, news came of the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel. Hundreds of Israeli civilians were slaughtered. The death toll would eventually rise to well over 1,000 Israelis and thousands injured and wounded. The death toll will surely rise. And Hamas holds hostages. In days to come, surely many more dead will be counted.
On Saturday, two friends generally sympathetic to the Palestinian cause (however that may be defined) sent me messages, the gist of which was that Israel’s ongoing oppression of the Palestinians is the justification for the actions taken by Hamas.
Let me pause to say unequivocally that using the word “justification” in the same sentence as Hamas, is an affront to decency. This is a barbaric, terrorist organization whose sole purpose is to destroy Israel and kill Jews. I responded with a question and an observation.
My question: Are you trying to legitimize the atrocity that Hamas has committed? My observation: Hamas has made a huge mistake.
Whatever justifications you may conjure up for what I see as atrocities, you have no idea what is about to be unleashed. You haven’t seen anything yet.
My friends messaged back saying that I made no sense and to explain. I wrote back: Hamas has made a colossally stupid mistake. This is going to provoke a response that will be horrific and like nothing you have ever seen. My friends engaged and asked me to explain further.
I wrote: Bibi has no choice but to make the politicians’ response which is to wreak mayhem on the “enemy” which is Hamas, and worse, Israel has pretty much carte blanche to target whatever it designates as Hamas strongholds or areas from which it is conducting operations whether that be true or not.
Hamas has allowed Bibi to put all issues of morality and proportionality aside and go on a destructive rampage. Netanyahu’s government is now charged with the greatest intelligence and security failure.
Right under the noses of the Mossad, Hamas amassed thousands of rockets and right in the face of the IDF, Hamas has been able to launch more than 2,500 rockets in one day and some 2,000 more since.
You cannot have an event that is the second biggest killing of Jews since the Holocaust and expect Israel not to respond. You cannot expect Netanyahu to deflect from the intelligence and security failure with deflection and in a way designed to send a loud and clear message of deterrence – Do Not Mess With Israel.
Futility and helplessness
Let me pose to my readers the question I posed to another friend whose support for Hamas wavered somewhat in the face of its barbaric atrocities committed last Saturday.
I asked: When we get to Wednesday or Thursday next week (and we are now at that point) and Israel has had a chance to mount a response, I’ll want to take you back to Friday last week and let you decide, if you were the leader of Hamas and knew what was going to happen, would you have carried out this attack?
When I told one of my Jewish friends about this, his response was: Darn right. He said: “I want to see a forceful response by Israel. I want to see Hamas wiped off the face of the earth.
” I asked him: When we get to Wednesday or Thursday next week and Israel has had a chance to regroup and respond, you will undoubtedly cheer on Netanyahu’s promise to cripple Hamas’ ability to govern Gaza and to destroy forever its ability to threaten Israel, but will you be proud of the death of civilians and the rubble left? He asked: “What rubble?” I told him that I expect Netanyahu to unleash the equivalent of carpet bombing.
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