How to end Gaza’s misery

The world must finally learn

to face the truth

 

By RALPH DOBRIN

The pattern keeps repeating itself in the Middle East as it has done for more than 60 years. Arabs attack Jews. Jews practise restraint at first, but the Arab attacks intensify and the Jews are forced to retaliate. People all over the world see gruesome images on their TV screens of battered Arabs. The Jews are branded as the aggressors and widely condemned in the media and in every international forum. They are pressured into making concessions and the Arabs are encouraged by all this. After a while they resume attacking Israel.

But invariably it’s the Arabs who suffer most from the attacks on the Jews. Moreover the censure and condemnation levelled against Israel actually cause the Arabs even more grief in the long run. I’ll explain presently.

But right now in Gaza we’re at the stage where Israel is going to have to stop before it can properly prevent the resumption of rocket attacks on her towns and villages. A few weeks ago, after a six-month fake-lull in the hostilities, the Hamas government/terrorist organization began launching a daily barrage of up to 80 rockets into Israel’s towns and villages, while Israel refrained from retaliating.

Obviously this situation became totally untenable for Israel. After all, the launching of thousands of rockets over the last few years by an elected neighboring government demanded a vigorous reaction by Israel, as nothing else has helped. Indeed, the complete evacuation of every single Jew from the Gaza Strip, rather than lead to quiet, precipitated an escalation of the rocket attacks on Israel. It begged for war. But fighting with Hamas means the destruction of whole neighborhoods, because Hamas stages their attacks from within the homes of the citizens, from mosques and schools. Hamas (and Hizbollah) use their own women and children as human shields. This leads to the deaths of hundreds of non-combatant Gazans – many of them women and children.

And that’s exactly what Hamas wanted. Apart from killing Jews simply because they are Jews, civilian casualties of Arabs always arouses enormous international protest against Israel, coming from every possible podium and forum – from the capitals all over the world, to universities and parliaments to the United Nations itself. It’s a ploy that never fails.

The heart-rending images seen on the TV screens all over the world, of destitute Arabs crouching on mounds of rubble that had been their homes, grieving over their dead children, must infuriate any decent human being, no matter what nationality. Most Israelis, even though they realize the need for drastic military action, shake their heads in deep dismay over the terrible scenes coming out of Gaza.

There are also terrible scenes in Israel’s Southern towns and villages, but nothing to compare with the unspeakable carnage in Gaza. Clearly, for the foreign TV crews, the smaller mounds of rubble of Shderot and Ashkelon are not nearly as dramatic and photogenic as the misery and widespread destruction in Gaza. So the viewers all over the world hardly see the results of Hamas’ handiwork in Israel. Indeed, the almost daily mortar and rocket attacks on Israel’s towns and villages for the last eight years, have seldom if ever been mentioned by most of the world’s press and TV stations. People don’t realize what has led to Israel’s assault on Gaza. Most people think that Israel has once again suddenly launched a monstrous attack for no reason at all on innocent people. For most outsiders this present outbreak is yet another one-sided confrontation between a Jewish Goliath equipped with the most sophisticated tools of destruction against an Arab David equipped with primitive weapons, fighting gallantly for his freedom, his land, his people, his honor.

The people of the world don’t realize that they are being duped – again and again. People don’t really have time to delve into the background of the Israel-Arab conflict. Also, few people outside Israel (and ruefully in Gaza itself) realize that Hamas has created much of its defence infra-structure within the homes and schools of the Gazan population; that many of the Arab civilian casualties were actually caused because of exploding ammunition dumps and booby traps in private homes; few people register the enormity of Hamas shooting from schools and mosques; or that Israel keeps letting in huge humanitarian aird convoys with food, medicine and other basic supplies.

The great purveyors of mass information such as the BBC, CNN, France-2 and other TV stations as well as most major newspapers, are pretty mum about such matters. A large part of humanity reckons that Israel has also stolen the Arabs’ land and therefore she must be condemned, despised, boycotted and even made to just disappear – illustrating the immense power of the big lie.

Most of the world’s leaders, academics and media personalities choose to overlook that Gaza together with the rest of Judea and Samaria could have had their statehood when Israel allowed Yasser Arafat and his henchmen to return from exile in Tunisia in 1994 to set up the Palestine Authority. Also overlooked is the fact that three years ago, in a move designed to engender peace with the Arabs of the region, Israel actually uprooted every single vestige of Jewish presence out of Gaza. The international community has chosen to ignore that instead of responding accordingly, Hamas launched yet another totally unprovoked escalation of rocket attacks on Israel’s towns and villages which, apart from a few lulls, has lasted until the present day. Nobody seems to consider that four times in the last sixty years, Gaza has been used as a launching pad for attacks and invasions on Israel, and that each time has resulted in Gaza being occupied by Israel and then returned to Arab jurisdiction.

IT’S ALWAYS THE ARABS WHO SUFFER MOST

Another major point that very few people realize is that those who suffer most from Arab aggression … are always the Arabs themselves, whether they are Gazans, or people in Hebron, Nablus, Jenin or Lebanon.

Yet another point is that the people who in the long run, suffer most from international condemnation against Israel, are the Arabs themselves, and no matter whether the condemnation is in the form of mass demonstrations in the capitals of the world, or from university or church podiums or cynical United Nations condemnations of Israel, or the break-off of diplomatic ties, ultimately its the Arabs who always bear the consequences.

Why is this? Why are the Arabs the ones who are always most hurt even though the military attacks or the international condemnation is directed against Israel. The answer is because all these actions encourage the Arabs to continue their belligerence against Israel. This is what’s been happening for a hundred years now. The Arabs have employed every possible tactic to undermine or obliterate the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel. In the beginning they rioted, murdered, and concocted wild lies. They weren’t admonished. Then they resorted to pogroms. Later they launched mass invasions against Israel and set up economic boycotts. Even then no state condemned them or broke off diplomatic relations. They have encouraged and created terror organizations and suicide bombings. And each time till this present round of hostilities, hardly anyone accused the Arabs of being way out of line.

But probably the worst thing they have done was to create and perpetuate the refugee problem – the only one in the world that has lasted for over sixty years and which is not being solved – because it is used as yet another highly effective weapon against Israel. And no country has ever condemned this ongoing heinous stand. Meanwhile, the world allows itself to be duped and pays for the upkeep of millions of people forced to stay in this wretched refugee status – three generations and no end whatsover in sight.

The world chooses to ignore that the Arabs of Judea and Samaria were offered statehood in half of what was left of Palestine, after 77% had been lopped off to create the Kingdom of Jordan. Subsequently as a result of the U.N. Partition Vote, the Jews were alotted the remaining half. In other words they were alotted about one-eighth of the original Palestine. The Arabs refused to accept any national sovereignty anywhere in the Middle East for the Jews, despite their 3000-year-connection. So the Arabs launched a war to utterly destroy the Jewish state (a mere three years after the end of the Holocaust). And nobody in any top position of authority anywhere in the world castigated the Arabs for this dastardly move. Nobody even scolded them for saying that this would be a massacre like never before in history.

The result of that 1948 invasion on tiny Israel was the beginning of the terrible Arab refugee problem. Furthermore, what should have been the establishment of an additional Arab state side by side with Israel, was simply annexed by the Kingdom of Jordan.

Since then, every few years there is yet another stage in this ongoing Arab quest to destroy Israel. And after every stage, Israel becomes stronger … while the world refrains from criticising the Arabs. World leaders don’t want to upset the sources of oil or cause any unnecessary diplomatic rift with 22 Arab states and another few score Muslim countries.

So the quest to destroy Israel continues – with international sanction. This last terrible war in Gaza is yet another example of Israel being provoked way beyond human endurance, with the express purpose that it would lead to international condemnation of Israel. On this score, Hamas has succeeded.

But if you look at the dreadful destruction of Gaza and the hundreds of lives needlessly lost, it is clear once again that the Arabs are the ones who suffer most.

To paraphrase the immortal words of Pete Seeger: “When will they ever learn?” When will leaders, media editors and ordinary concerned citizens of the world understand that the only way to end Arab suffering and to bring peace to the region, is by telling them firmly that they must stop this quest to destroy Israel. It’s simply immoral to want to destroy another nation, and it’s immoral to support that quest.

For more see: www.israelandtruth.org/peace_1.htm