Commentary/Contentions..
19 June '12..
In just the last month, Israel’s partial blockade of Hamas-run Gaza was subjected to a new round of condemnations by Amnesty International and other groups purporting to speak on behalf of the cause of human rights that are supposedly being violated by the Jewish state. The fact that Israel has never halted the flow of food or medicine into the strip and has continued to allow it to be hooked up to the country’s electrical grid and only sought to hold back construction materials and armaments has not stopped Israel-haters from promoting the myth that there is a humanitarian disaster going on in Gaza. Despite the loosening of the already lax blockade in the last year and the steady flow of material into Gaza via the now open border with Egypt or the smuggling tunnels run by Hamas, the complaints about Israel continue. But unfortunately, so too does the barrage of terrorist missiles from Gaza into southern Israel.
In the first six months of 2011, in a time when there was supposedly a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, nearly 300 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza. That is a routine of terror that residents of the Jewish state have been accustomed to and which is met by silence from both the international community and the human rights crowd. But in the last day, the routine has escalated to the exceptional, as more than 40 missiles and mortar shells were launched from Gaza, resulting in a few casualties as well as frayed nerves throughout the affected area. Though Israel’s early warning system and missile defenses (as well as the poor aim of the Palestinians) prevented any fatalities, the latest surge of violence gives the lie both to the assertion that Hamas has adopted a policy of non-violence and the contention of Israel’s critics that its measures of self-defense against the terrorist army based there are unnecessary.
Lest there be any doubt about who is responsible for the rockets raining down on Israel, Hamas decided to claim responsibility for the escalation rather than to let some splinter group claim the glory of firing on the Jews. The attacks come only a day after a terror squad crossed from Gaza through Egyptian territory to hit Israel and kill one person (an Israeli Arab construction worker).
It’s not clear whether the proximate cause of the attacks was a desire to make a point about events in Egypt, where the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood — the group that spawned Hamas — won the presidency. Another possible theory is that it is related to internal Palestinian politics and reflects the justified concern on the part of Hamas that it is losing popularity because of the relative paucity of its attacks on Jewish targets in the last year.
But either way, the Kassam rockets, Grad missiles and mortar shells landing on Israeli buildings and fields are just the latest proof that the independent state that exists in all but name in Gaza is an armed camp whose main purpose is to continue the war on Israel’s existence. The idea that Gaza’s rulers should be trusted to join the government of the West Bank and then be granted the freedom to carry on their war on the Jews there is one that most Israelis regard as nothing short of insanity–even if it is what most of the international community ardently desires. Israel’s leaders will decide the nature and the timing of a response to the escalation. But the rockets are a reminder that the claims Hamas has reformed itself or that Israel need not fear the military buildup going on in Gaza are myths aimed at undermining the security of the Jewish state.
Link: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/06/19/rockets-prove-hamas-has-not-changed-gaza-israel/
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