Video Of The Week- Why Israel Uses Lethal Force During Mass Gaza
Protests- https://tinyurl.com/yah7hclf
By Mark
Humphrys
Sunday
Times (London)
27-5-2018
Books of
condolence have opened in Ireland for some hideous people, such as Fidel Castro
in 2016 and Yasser Arafat in 2004. But the opening in Dublin of a book of
condolence on May 16 for the Hamas rioters in Gaza takes the biscuit. More than
100 rioters have been killed attacking the border with Israel over the past two
months, and the reaction in Ireland has been hysterical. There were calls to
expel the Israeli ambassador and boycott Israeli goods. The Hezbollah flag flew
at an Ireland-Palestine Solidarity protest in Derry. One popular Irish Twitter
account even called for a terrorist attack on the Israeli embassy.
What
happened in Gaza this month was that 50,000 rioters tried to break through the
border and storm into Israel to kill Jewish families in houses nearby. They
were open about that. Social media in Gaza was full of calls to attack and kill
local Jews. One post said: “Kibbutz Kerem Abu Salem is . . . 200 meters from
the fence . . . and only 15 families live there. Attack them with knives!”
One video
showed a group breaking through the fence. They shout: “Allah Akbar. Remember
Khaybar. Oh Jews, we’re coming to slaughter you.” Khaybar was the battle where
Muhammad slaughtered the Jews and took their women as war booty.
Now you
may say we don’t know that the rioters wanted to lynch Jewish families. But
that doesn’t matter. The Israel Defense Forces believed the mobs wanted to
lynch Jewish families, so it used force to stop them. And if tear gas and live
fire are not enough, it will use helicopters and fighter jets. The military
would never let 50,000 jihadis raid a Jewish village to see what happened. The
only logical thing for Gazans to do is steer clear of the fence.
Could the
Israeli army have stopped them with less bloodshed? Claims were made that
soldiers were shooting indiscriminately. This was rather disproved by the
emergence of photographs of military funerals for about half of those killed. A
Hamas official said most of the dead killed in riots on May 14 were Hamas:
“Sixty-two people were martyred; 50 of them are from Hamas and 12 from the
people.” If Israel’s forces were shooting at random, then they had the luckiest
shooting day of any army in history.
Gazans
would clearly be safe if they left Israel alone. On May 14, huge mobs attacked the
fence and 60 died. The next day, a few people attacked it and two died. The
following day the rioters stayed away. This may indicate a way to keep Gazans
safe. All they have to do is stay away from the fence. We heard the claim that
they were driven by “despair”. What they were driven by is hatred,
anti-semitism, jihad and the excitement of a march on Israel to cleanse the
land of the Jews. They were driven by hope, not despair.
The
tragedy of Gaza is that, ever since the Jews left, a new life has been there
for the taking. All they have to do is ignore Israel, stop terrorism, stop
thinking about the Jews, and build a state in Gaza. They should abandon “the
struggle” and pursue money and life. If they did so, and if they were serious,
Israel would drop the security barriers and partner with them to pump money
into Gaza. They could become some of the richest and happiest Arabs in the
Middle East.
But
Gazans do not want to be rich and happy. They want other things: honour, blood,
soil, revenge and jihad. These things will not make them happy, but that is
what they want, so their misery will continue. They do not need books of
condolence. They need someone to talk sense to them.