Hamas Is Killing the Children of Gaza

5 January 2009

CBC News reported today that 23 children have died in Gaza during the current Israeli invasion.

The international community is aroused, blaming Israel for the deaths of innocent civilians.

Sometimes the obvious must be said.

The people of Palestine elected Hamas to direct their affairs. During the 6-month so-called "ceasefire," Hamas has done nothing but rearm itself and continue to direct rocket attacks with ever more sophisticated and longer-range missiles against the Israeli civilian population.

By every standard of international relations, lobbing missiles across international borders to target urban populations is an act of war.

Israel has responded in kind to the unapologetic aggressive stance of Hamas by escalating its longstanding blockade into a land invasion of the Gaza territory.

I'll grant you, the background situation is complex. Israel has often been wrong, unjust, and brutal - as have the Palestinians. The blockade of Gaza has induced hardships among Gaza's population proportionate to the suffering of Israel's citizens in response to continued rocket attacks.

However, both peoples have a right to exist. Hamas does not acknowledge this basic right of the Israeli people. Thus they are able to rationalize their out-and-out defiance of the negotiated terms of peaceful coexistence on repeated occasions. Hamas demonstrates no respect for international standards of peaceful coexistence, forcing the Israelis to contemplate and pursue a variety of retaliatory actions.

Hamas has rightly been identified as an international terrorist organization. By waging war on Israel, they have brought inevitable (in fact, preconsidered) consequences upon their own people.

Israel's withdrawal from Gaza is not the solution. It is Hamas that has to go.

Until the Palestinians and their surrounding neighbours acknowledge Israel's right to exist, Israel has no option but to fight for its survival. This is human nature, and I salute the Israelis' commitment to the defense of their civilian population.

Hamas is forcing Israel into ground warfare in their urban operational base. They know civilians live here, and yet choose to conduct their operations in these settings.

By strategy and by policy, Hamas itself is killing the children of Gaza, but setting the stage to make Israel appear responsible. This is strategic cunning at its very worst. It is a ploy on their part to build heightened resentment against Israel, but the Israelis see through the smokescreen. You should too.

Don't blame the Israelis for the suffering of the Palestinian peoples in Gaza who have been sacrificed through the cold calculations of their own leadership. Present events are unfolding by Hamas' playbook. The children of Gaza will not be safe to live and grow in peace until Hamas is entirely discredited and removed from power.

Israel's incursion is intended only to eliminate the personnel and infrastructure that support the continued illegal missile attacks on their soil. I wish them every success in this venture.

Remember that in times of peace, Israel sought to incorporate Palestinians into the fabric of Israeli society by providing education and employment opportunities to a people who previously had no such opportunities. The secular Israeli state was intended to incorporate and not to exclude the Palestinian people who chose to join in Israeli society.

When locked in combat with the Palestinians, Israel may appear the bully on the block. Certainly Israel has far more wealth and power at its disposal than do the Palestinians. By the same logic, however, Israel's citizens are greatly outnumbered by the Arabic and Islamic population of the Middle East. Israel is locked in a struggle for its survival and the Israelis know it. They are fighting strategically to assure the continuance of their people in a world that was willing to let every Jewish person on the planet die little more than half a century ago.

However paternalistic or one-sided Israel's original plan for the Palestinians may have been, it was an inclusive one. Hamas' only goal is to eliminate the population of Israel. That is genocidal intent, plain and simple.

Internationally, Hamas advocates genocide. Internally, Hamas has planned the death and suffering of its own citizens. Shame on them for adopting and acting upon this brutal logic.

(Images sourced through the Wall Street Journal Online.)
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