http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/gaza+rise+in+antisemitism+/2908307
Is it just me but even when they are talking about anti-semetism they seem to try and justify it by saying it is becasue of Israel? Does no-one round here get it? Extremism is extremism is extremism! No Hindus are beating up Pakistanis after Mumbai. No Sudanese are beating up Arabs after Darfur. No Sikhs are beating up Pakistanis after being chucked out of their ancestoral homelands!! There is NO justification for this behaviour and just shows the base nature of these people who hide behind their "love"of the Palestinians to justify crucifying the Jews.
Thursday, 22 January 2009
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Watch this link and complain!!
Watch this
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/scale+of+gaza+devastation+revealed+/2908257
then complain here
http://help.channel4.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New,Kb=C4_Author,Company={2EA1BB9C-510E-44A5-A481-01EB1DDA1669},T=CONTACT_VE,VARSET_TITLE=TV
I had a rant at Channel 4-I think I went a bit OTT but I was so cross with the lies!!
The news article by Jonathan Miller on Gaza must be one of the most factually deficient and unbalanced piece of reporting ever!! First of all, he makes no mention of the fact that Hamas were shooting at Israel from these houses, using the mosques as storehouses for their bombs and had boobytrapped alot of the houses. How do we know that alot of the damage was not from secondary explosions from stored weapons and not from the Israeli attack? He makes a hysterical comment-"this is worse than any Tsunami or earthquake" which I actually find quite offensive to the 100,000 people who innocently died in the Tsunami. These Palestinians have voted in a terror group as their leaders. I would not vote for BNP just because I feel immigration is out of control in this country!! In the same way, if the Palestinians were truely intent on peace, then they should not have voted in a terror group who use them as human shields. Look at youtube and there is tons of evidence of how evil these people are. Yet, you choose to propogate lies and propaganda which "fuel the extremists" in this country. Shame on you for such irresponsible journalism. Shame on you for not showing the devestation to Sderot and Ashkelon and Ashdod in the same news article. Shame on you for not telling the truth so you hurtle the world further and further into the hands of these extremists who use pictures like this as a cause to reek their havoc and destruction on the world. When the next suicide bomber occurs in this country, it will be your fault!! Already, synagogues are being burnt and Jews are being attacked. I don't see any Muslims being attacked by Jews. Do you not think that it is becasue they want to live in peace? Do Jews fly planes into Twin Towers? Do Jews blow up trains and buses in London? Do Jews murder as many people intentionally in Mumbai? These people are sick!!! The Israelis drop leaflets so that people don't have to leave at 2am in the morning! They knew to be out of their homes. And if they were being targetted it was because there was a rocket launcher on their roof!!!!! I have never said this in my life before but more and more I am coming to the conclusion that you are a bunch of anti-semites!! Did you know how many people were killed in Sri Lanka today in the war between the TT and the Govt? Where was the mention of that? Why do you care so much for the Palestinians who are still calling for the destruction of Israel and not for the Zimbwabeans who are being killed by their leader? Where are your reports on Darfur?
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/scale+of+gaza+devastation+revealed+/2908257
then complain here
http://help.channel4.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New,Kb=C4_Author,Company={2EA1BB9C-510E-44A5-A481-01EB1DDA1669},T=CONTACT_VE,VARSET_TITLE=TV
I had a rant at Channel 4-I think I went a bit OTT but I was so cross with the lies!!
The news article by Jonathan Miller on Gaza must be one of the most factually deficient and unbalanced piece of reporting ever!! First of all, he makes no mention of the fact that Hamas were shooting at Israel from these houses, using the mosques as storehouses for their bombs and had boobytrapped alot of the houses. How do we know that alot of the damage was not from secondary explosions from stored weapons and not from the Israeli attack? He makes a hysterical comment-"this is worse than any Tsunami or earthquake" which I actually find quite offensive to the 100,000 people who innocently died in the Tsunami. These Palestinians have voted in a terror group as their leaders. I would not vote for BNP just because I feel immigration is out of control in this country!! In the same way, if the Palestinians were truely intent on peace, then they should not have voted in a terror group who use them as human shields. Look at youtube and there is tons of evidence of how evil these people are. Yet, you choose to propogate lies and propaganda which "fuel the extremists" in this country. Shame on you for such irresponsible journalism. Shame on you for not showing the devestation to Sderot and Ashkelon and Ashdod in the same news article. Shame on you for not telling the truth so you hurtle the world further and further into the hands of these extremists who use pictures like this as a cause to reek their havoc and destruction on the world. When the next suicide bomber occurs in this country, it will be your fault!! Already, synagogues are being burnt and Jews are being attacked. I don't see any Muslims being attacked by Jews. Do you not think that it is becasue they want to live in peace? Do Jews fly planes into Twin Towers? Do Jews blow up trains and buses in London? Do Jews murder as many people intentionally in Mumbai? These people are sick!!! The Israelis drop leaflets so that people don't have to leave at 2am in the morning! They knew to be out of their homes. And if they were being targetted it was because there was a rocket launcher on their roof!!!!! I have never said this in my life before but more and more I am coming to the conclusion that you are a bunch of anti-semites!! Did you know how many people were killed in Sri Lanka today in the war between the TT and the Govt? Where was the mention of that? Why do you care so much for the Palestinians who are still calling for the destruction of Israel and not for the Zimbwabeans who are being killed by their leader? Where are your reports on Darfur?
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
These Palestinians are crazy!!!
I do so love the way the Palestinians are in a constant state of denial. See below posting below. One second into a ceasefire and they already calling for Israel's destruction!! Hmmm. Something tells me that they are not seriously interested in peace-just biding their time. As I said before, Pharoah was in a state of denial too and G-d sent a disproportionate set of plagues against him!! Watch out Palestinians, you don't know who you are up against!! Our G-d promised our forefather Abraham, Israel to his descendants through Issac. Our G-d took us out of Egypt with a strong hand. Our G-d has ensured our survival through inquisitions, pogroms and holocausts. Our G-d does not tolerate murderers and liars as you have time and again proven yourselves to be. Just as Haman hung from the very rope he had created for the Jewish Mordechai, so too will your methods of destruction of Israel, lead to your own destruction.
Emboldened Hamas Declares Victory
Emboldened by surviving Israel's military onslaught, Hamas declared victory Tuesday in rallies attended by thousands supporters waving green Islamic flags atop the ruins in Gaza.
The Islamic militants taunted Israel _ one huge banner proclaimed Israel's defeat in Hebrew _ and said Gaza is just a stepping stone for eliminating the Jewish state. "Hamas today is more powerful," Ismail Radwan, a Hamas leader, told a crowd from a terrace overlooking Gaza's main square, with the demolished parliament building serving as a backdrop.
However, beyond the fiery words, Hamas has offered no plans for rebuilding Gaza, which suffered about $2 billion in destruction during Israel's three-week war on Hamas. Also, Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt, largely sealed since Hamas seized Gaza 19 months ago, are unlikely to open unless the militants relinquish some of their control.
Just a few hundred yards (meters) from the main Hamas rally, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon toured the local U.N. headquarters, inspecting damage from an Israeli shelling attack last week. The shells hit car repair shops and three warehouses where flour, oil and other food rations for Gaza's growing population of needy were stored.
Five days after the shelling, piles of rice, beans and medicine were still smoldering, and Ban spoke to reporters just a few feet (meters) away from where the white smoke rose into the air. The buzz of Israeli unmanned aircraft, accompanied his remarks.
The world's top diplomat said he felt "utter frustration, utter anger" over the shelling of the compound and two U.N. schools and demanded a full investigation. Israel has said troops responded to fire from militants from these areas, a claim the U.N. has vehemently denied. Israel says it's carrying out its own investigation.
During a tour of the compound, Ban was told that hundreds of tons of food and medicine had been destroyed in Thursday's shelling. "It's totally outrageous and unacceptable," he said, shaking his head.
He later visited the Israeli border town of Sderot, a frequent target of Hamas rockets in recent years, and expressed sympathy with the residents. "You live every day with a threat of a rocket falling from the sky. No human being can live in a state like this," Ban said. "I expect basic humanitarian law to protect civilian life to be respected and restored and not violated as Hamas has done."
Ban personally intervened during the war to try to stop the violence that killed nearly 1,300 Palestinians, including about 900 civilians and 168 civil police, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).
The Gaza-based group also reported that 156 militants were killed, including 48 from Hamas, 34 from Islamic Jihad and the rest from Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement and smaller factions. Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, a Gaza Health Ministry official who also keeps track of casualties, said he believes Hamas and others have not reported all their dead fighters.
Hamas leaders have not spoken publicly about the number of fighters killed, in an apparent bid not to undermine morale. Hamas commands about 20,000 armed men.
In any case, Hamas has set the bar low for declaring victory _ to survive Israel's assault, which included air strikes on more than 2,500 targets, as well as a two-week ground offensive.
Hamas' leadership has remained largely intact, with two of the top five killed in Israeli bombings. Still, the others, particularly strongman Mahmoud Zahar, mastermind of the 2007 takeover, and Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh have not yet emerged from hiding.
Instead, a dozen victory rallies across Gaza were led Tuesday by second-tier Hamas officials. In several locations, marchers assembled at bombing sites, apparently to underscore the message of defiance.
In Gaza City, legislator Ismail Radwan spoke from a terrace near the new five-story parliament, reduced to a gray pile of concrete by several bombings. Next to him, on the terrace, Hamas security men held up a large banner in Hebrew, that read: "Hamas is victorious. Israel has been defeated."
Radwan said Hamas is stronger than ever and poised to one day take control not just of the West Bank, ruled by Abbas, a Hamas rival, but also of what is now Israel.
"Gaza is not our goal," he told a subdued crowd of several thousand. "The liberation of all of Palestine, from the river to the sea, God willing, will be achieved," he said, referring to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Hamas speaks with several voices, and Radwan's uncompromising message is not necessarily shared by all Hamas leaders in Gaza. For example, Ghazi Hamad, a pragmatic leader, told journalists earlier this week that Hamas would be satisfied with ending Israeli control over areas occupied in the 1967 Mideast War _ the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.
However, hardliners seem to be setting the tone at a time when the international community is scrambling to broker a more durable cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Any deal would have to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza, but also end the blockade of the territory _ requiring compromises that neither side has so far been unwilling to make.
Israel had withdrawn the bulk of its forces from Gaza by Tuesday evening, coinciding with the inauguration of Barack Obama as U.S. president. However, the temporary cease-fire remained shaky.
Palestinians and human rights workers reported that Israeli troops shot to death two Gaza farmers in separate incidents since the truce took hold Monday. The military said troops returned fire in one case, and had no information on the other. On Tuesday evening, the air force struck a Gaza mortar squad after it shelled Israel, the military said.
The rebuilding of Gaza is also turning into an increasingly contentious issue.
Many donor countries may be reluctant to funnel aid to Hamas, but may also not want to get embroiled in Hamas' political battle with Abbas, who is seeking a leading role in rebuilding Gaza.
On Tuesday, an Arab League summit in Kuwait ended without agreement on a reconstruction plan. One camp, led by Syria and Qatar, supports Hamas. The other, headed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, wants to pressure the Islamic militants to moderate their positions.
Many ordinary Gazans are apprehensive about their future.
"I'm not affiliated with anyone. I just want to raise my eight children," said Jawdat Abu Nahel, who sells tea and coffee from a cart in Gaza City's Square of the Unknown Soldier. He dismissed Hamas' victory claims. "We can't talk about real victory because there were thousands of martyrs, and we didn't liberate anything," he said.
However, Samiha Shaheen, 45, watching the rally from a park bench, said Gazans should be proud.
"We, the people of Gaza, survived the full extent of Israel's force, the tanks, the warplanes, the shelling, the rockets. Is that not a victory?" she asked.
The Islamic militants taunted Israel _ one huge banner proclaimed Israel's defeat in Hebrew _ and said Gaza is just a stepping stone for eliminating the Jewish state. "Hamas today is more powerful," Ismail Radwan, a Hamas leader, told a crowd from a terrace overlooking Gaza's main square, with the demolished parliament building serving as a backdrop.
However, beyond the fiery words, Hamas has offered no plans for rebuilding Gaza, which suffered about $2 billion in destruction during Israel's three-week war on Hamas. Also, Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt, largely sealed since Hamas seized Gaza 19 months ago, are unlikely to open unless the militants relinquish some of their control.
Just a few hundred yards (meters) from the main Hamas rally, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon toured the local U.N. headquarters, inspecting damage from an Israeli shelling attack last week. The shells hit car repair shops and three warehouses where flour, oil and other food rations for Gaza's growing population of needy were stored.
Five days after the shelling, piles of rice, beans and medicine were still smoldering, and Ban spoke to reporters just a few feet (meters) away from where the white smoke rose into the air. The buzz of Israeli unmanned aircraft, accompanied his remarks.
The world's top diplomat said he felt "utter frustration, utter anger" over the shelling of the compound and two U.N. schools and demanded a full investigation. Israel has said troops responded to fire from militants from these areas, a claim the U.N. has vehemently denied. Israel says it's carrying out its own investigation.
During a tour of the compound, Ban was told that hundreds of tons of food and medicine had been destroyed in Thursday's shelling. "It's totally outrageous and unacceptable," he said, shaking his head.
He later visited the Israeli border town of Sderot, a frequent target of Hamas rockets in recent years, and expressed sympathy with the residents. "You live every day with a threat of a rocket falling from the sky. No human being can live in a state like this," Ban said. "I expect basic humanitarian law to protect civilian life to be respected and restored and not violated as Hamas has done."
Ban personally intervened during the war to try to stop the violence that killed nearly 1,300 Palestinians, including about 900 civilians and 168 civil police, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).
The Gaza-based group also reported that 156 militants were killed, including 48 from Hamas, 34 from Islamic Jihad and the rest from Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement and smaller factions. Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, a Gaza Health Ministry official who also keeps track of casualties, said he believes Hamas and others have not reported all their dead fighters.
Hamas leaders have not spoken publicly about the number of fighters killed, in an apparent bid not to undermine morale. Hamas commands about 20,000 armed men.
In any case, Hamas has set the bar low for declaring victory _ to survive Israel's assault, which included air strikes on more than 2,500 targets, as well as a two-week ground offensive.
Hamas' leadership has remained largely intact, with two of the top five killed in Israeli bombings. Still, the others, particularly strongman Mahmoud Zahar, mastermind of the 2007 takeover, and Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh have not yet emerged from hiding.
Instead, a dozen victory rallies across Gaza were led Tuesday by second-tier Hamas officials. In several locations, marchers assembled at bombing sites, apparently to underscore the message of defiance.
In Gaza City, legislator Ismail Radwan spoke from a terrace near the new five-story parliament, reduced to a gray pile of concrete by several bombings. Next to him, on the terrace, Hamas security men held up a large banner in Hebrew, that read: "Hamas is victorious. Israel has been defeated."
Radwan said Hamas is stronger than ever and poised to one day take control not just of the West Bank, ruled by Abbas, a Hamas rival, but also of what is now Israel.
"Gaza is not our goal," he told a subdued crowd of several thousand. "The liberation of all of Palestine, from the river to the sea, God willing, will be achieved," he said, referring to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Hamas speaks with several voices, and Radwan's uncompromising message is not necessarily shared by all Hamas leaders in Gaza. For example, Ghazi Hamad, a pragmatic leader, told journalists earlier this week that Hamas would be satisfied with ending Israeli control over areas occupied in the 1967 Mideast War _ the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.
However, hardliners seem to be setting the tone at a time when the international community is scrambling to broker a more durable cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Any deal would have to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza, but also end the blockade of the territory _ requiring compromises that neither side has so far been unwilling to make.
Israel had withdrawn the bulk of its forces from Gaza by Tuesday evening, coinciding with the inauguration of Barack Obama as U.S. president. However, the temporary cease-fire remained shaky.
Palestinians and human rights workers reported that Israeli troops shot to death two Gaza farmers in separate incidents since the truce took hold Monday. The military said troops returned fire in one case, and had no information on the other. On Tuesday evening, the air force struck a Gaza mortar squad after it shelled Israel, the military said.
The rebuilding of Gaza is also turning into an increasingly contentious issue.
Many donor countries may be reluctant to funnel aid to Hamas, but may also not want to get embroiled in Hamas' political battle with Abbas, who is seeking a leading role in rebuilding Gaza.
On Tuesday, an Arab League summit in Kuwait ended without agreement on a reconstruction plan. One camp, led by Syria and Qatar, supports Hamas. The other, headed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, wants to pressure the Islamic militants to moderate their positions.
Many ordinary Gazans are apprehensive about their future.
"I'm not affiliated with anyone. I just want to raise my eight children," said Jawdat Abu Nahel, who sells tea and coffee from a cart in Gaza City's Square of the Unknown Soldier. He dismissed Hamas' victory claims. "We can't talk about real victory because there were thousands of martyrs, and we didn't liberate anything," he said.
However, Samiha Shaheen, 45, watching the rally from a park bench, said Gazans should be proud.
"We, the people of Gaza, survived the full extent of Israel's force, the tanks, the warplanes, the shelling, the rockets. Is that not a victory?" she asked.
Monday, 19 January 2009
Which side are you on?
The Human Spirit: Which side are you on?
Jan. 15, 2009Barbara Sofer , THE JERUSALEM POST
Dear Overseas Friends and Relatives,
Thanks to all of you who have been closely following our war with Hamas, and for your heartfelt support for our soldiers and home front. Many of you live in communities and campuses where speaking up for Israel has become unpopular and even dangerous. We value your courageousness and resilience. We felt cheered by the photos of you standing in the cold in New York and London last weekend demonstrating for Israel. We hail those students who refuse to be intimidated for their loyalty to Israel on campus. And we appreciate each of you who has surprised your fellow guests by halting the Israel bashing over dinner.
I'd like to address a few words to those of you who didn't come out to support Israel these past weeks because of so-called moral reservation. I'd like to ask you to reconsider your position.
I don't doubt your affection for our country, nor do I think anyone has automatically to agree with every decision of its government. Far from it. But I'd like you to reexamine your core belief that your ongoing private and public criticism is a loving expression of an important ethical correction for an errant nation.
With a long-practiced sigh of exasperation, you assume we're mulishly jingoistic and morally obtuse. There must be something wrong, you say. After all, we've had so many wars.
I spent my childhood in America, too. My home state of Connecticut hadn't seen fighting on its soil since the British blasted the coast in 1812. Before that, the infamous Benedict Arnold attacked New London in the Revolutionary War.
Until moving here, I'd never experienced the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air of which we sing in the American national anthem. The paradox of growing up without warfare at your doorstep is that you feel qualified to preach to others about how they should behave in protecting themselves.
Many of us are old enough to remember the evening in October 1962, when we felt threatened. I was just a child when president John Kennedy went on TV to prepare the American people. Soviet missile launchers were being built in our hemisphere, in Cuba. I recall uncontrollable shivering with fear. Faced with the threat of American military retaliation, the Soviet launchers were dismantled before the first missile was fired.
But what if the Cubans had insisted that it was their right as a sovereign nation to arm themselves as they see fit? Would the United States have waited for thousands of missiles to pound Orlando before reacting seriously? Israel has felt the blast of rockets from Iraq, rockets from Syria and Lebanon and rockets from Gaza. We do everything possible - except to surrender - before going to battle. We have no illusions about war being anything but blood, sweat and tears. The army that has sworn to protect us is made up of our own sons and daughters.
IN THE current conflict, each of us personally knows soldiers risking their lives by seeking Hamas in the alleys of Gaza. Last week, I was at the funeral of a friend's beautiful son, a gentle scholar, killed in the fighting. Another young man I know is still in intensive care. My children and grandchildren are among the 750,000 Israelis responding to warning sirens in missile attacks that began long before this war started. Instead of learning to read, they watch an animated program to remind them that they must run for shelter each time the Color Red alarm sounds. Suddenly they have gone from normal childhoods to becoming another generation of children in war zones.
Nor are you the only ones saddened by photos of injured children on the other side. We struggle with tough decisions about how to fight a war without losing our humanity. We send warning notes and even phone calls to Gaza civilians in the planned attack zone. We stop fighting to truck in food supplies. Leading columnists suggest bringing the injured here for us to heal them alongside our own.
But moral decisions are complicated. A senior military figure I met last week spoke about his decision not to fire from a helicopter at a terrorist because the terrorist's wife and children were with him. The following week the terrorist - sworn to our destruction - engineered a bus bombing inside Israel, killing children. The correctness of his earlier decision no longer was clear. We always regret killing children. Despite the absurd claims in the media, to the contrary, children are never our targets nor our shields.
GIVE PEACE a chance, you say. How can you fault us vis-a-vis Gaza? We did the impossible by sending in our own army to remove our own citizens from their farms and dairies in the Gaza Strip for the sake of peace. Back then, many voices complained that we had taken the best land of the Gaza Strip for our own breadbasket. The people of Gaza were being held back, they claimed, by our offensive presence. It didn't really make sense, but as a nation we went along with prime minister Ariel Sharon with his copious military experience and made this painful territorial concession for peace.
Many Palestinians had worked on the productive farms and could easily have turned out the same prize-winning celery and vitamin-rich milk. Instead, they wrecked the farms, and then they went to the polls and overwhelmingly endorsed a party with a clear platform to use the enormous human resources of the Gaza Strip and the inpouring of EU money to create a maze of terror.
Still, we did not choose war. We allowed our own citizens to be targeted by 6,500 missiles since the disengagement in 2005.
The horror of life in Gaza under Hamas is no secret. Is there one Palestinian in your community ready to move the family as new immigrants to build a modern state in Gaza City or Khan Yunis? Bad went to worse. Hamas declared that even its semi-commitment to a lower level of violence was off.
This time, we could not ignore the threat.
In Gaza, our soldiers found mosques turned into ammunition storage rooms and a network of tunnels built to smuggle in thousands of rockets and kidnap soldiers, not to supply the people with cases of penicillin and baby formula. Instead of investing in a cancer treatment center at Shifa Hospital, Hamas terrorized Palestinian doctors and nurses and put its talented engineers to the task of building a national arms bunker beneath the head of ailing patients. Remember, please, if you find this counterintuitive, that such behavior is consistent with the expression of jihad. All must be sacrificed to destroy the Jewish infidel.
We're not suffering from moral numbness. We simply have a close-up of what you can only so far fortunately see from a distance.
So, please rethink your position. You might start with asking yourself why you're so quick to think the worst of us. And, as the old Pete Seeger song says, it might be the right time to decide just which side you are on.
Jan. 15, 2009Barbara Sofer , THE JERUSALEM POST
Dear Overseas Friends and Relatives,
Thanks to all of you who have been closely following our war with Hamas, and for your heartfelt support for our soldiers and home front. Many of you live in communities and campuses where speaking up for Israel has become unpopular and even dangerous. We value your courageousness and resilience. We felt cheered by the photos of you standing in the cold in New York and London last weekend demonstrating for Israel. We hail those students who refuse to be intimidated for their loyalty to Israel on campus. And we appreciate each of you who has surprised your fellow guests by halting the Israel bashing over dinner.
I'd like to address a few words to those of you who didn't come out to support Israel these past weeks because of so-called moral reservation. I'd like to ask you to reconsider your position.
I don't doubt your affection for our country, nor do I think anyone has automatically to agree with every decision of its government. Far from it. But I'd like you to reexamine your core belief that your ongoing private and public criticism is a loving expression of an important ethical correction for an errant nation.
With a long-practiced sigh of exasperation, you assume we're mulishly jingoistic and morally obtuse. There must be something wrong, you say. After all, we've had so many wars.
I spent my childhood in America, too. My home state of Connecticut hadn't seen fighting on its soil since the British blasted the coast in 1812. Before that, the infamous Benedict Arnold attacked New London in the Revolutionary War.
Until moving here, I'd never experienced the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air of which we sing in the American national anthem. The paradox of growing up without warfare at your doorstep is that you feel qualified to preach to others about how they should behave in protecting themselves.
Many of us are old enough to remember the evening in October 1962, when we felt threatened. I was just a child when president John Kennedy went on TV to prepare the American people. Soviet missile launchers were being built in our hemisphere, in Cuba. I recall uncontrollable shivering with fear. Faced with the threat of American military retaliation, the Soviet launchers were dismantled before the first missile was fired.
But what if the Cubans had insisted that it was their right as a sovereign nation to arm themselves as they see fit? Would the United States have waited for thousands of missiles to pound Orlando before reacting seriously? Israel has felt the blast of rockets from Iraq, rockets from Syria and Lebanon and rockets from Gaza. We do everything possible - except to surrender - before going to battle. We have no illusions about war being anything but blood, sweat and tears. The army that has sworn to protect us is made up of our own sons and daughters.
IN THE current conflict, each of us personally knows soldiers risking their lives by seeking Hamas in the alleys of Gaza. Last week, I was at the funeral of a friend's beautiful son, a gentle scholar, killed in the fighting. Another young man I know is still in intensive care. My children and grandchildren are among the 750,000 Israelis responding to warning sirens in missile attacks that began long before this war started. Instead of learning to read, they watch an animated program to remind them that they must run for shelter each time the Color Red alarm sounds. Suddenly they have gone from normal childhoods to becoming another generation of children in war zones.
Nor are you the only ones saddened by photos of injured children on the other side. We struggle with tough decisions about how to fight a war without losing our humanity. We send warning notes and even phone calls to Gaza civilians in the planned attack zone. We stop fighting to truck in food supplies. Leading columnists suggest bringing the injured here for us to heal them alongside our own.
But moral decisions are complicated. A senior military figure I met last week spoke about his decision not to fire from a helicopter at a terrorist because the terrorist's wife and children were with him. The following week the terrorist - sworn to our destruction - engineered a bus bombing inside Israel, killing children. The correctness of his earlier decision no longer was clear. We always regret killing children. Despite the absurd claims in the media, to the contrary, children are never our targets nor our shields.
GIVE PEACE a chance, you say. How can you fault us vis-a-vis Gaza? We did the impossible by sending in our own army to remove our own citizens from their farms and dairies in the Gaza Strip for the sake of peace. Back then, many voices complained that we had taken the best land of the Gaza Strip for our own breadbasket. The people of Gaza were being held back, they claimed, by our offensive presence. It didn't really make sense, but as a nation we went along with prime minister Ariel Sharon with his copious military experience and made this painful territorial concession for peace.
Many Palestinians had worked on the productive farms and could easily have turned out the same prize-winning celery and vitamin-rich milk. Instead, they wrecked the farms, and then they went to the polls and overwhelmingly endorsed a party with a clear platform to use the enormous human resources of the Gaza Strip and the inpouring of EU money to create a maze of terror.
Still, we did not choose war. We allowed our own citizens to be targeted by 6,500 missiles since the disengagement in 2005.
The horror of life in Gaza under Hamas is no secret. Is there one Palestinian in your community ready to move the family as new immigrants to build a modern state in Gaza City or Khan Yunis? Bad went to worse. Hamas declared that even its semi-commitment to a lower level of violence was off.
This time, we could not ignore the threat.
In Gaza, our soldiers found mosques turned into ammunition storage rooms and a network of tunnels built to smuggle in thousands of rockets and kidnap soldiers, not to supply the people with cases of penicillin and baby formula. Instead of investing in a cancer treatment center at Shifa Hospital, Hamas terrorized Palestinian doctors and nurses and put its talented engineers to the task of building a national arms bunker beneath the head of ailing patients. Remember, please, if you find this counterintuitive, that such behavior is consistent with the expression of jihad. All must be sacrificed to destroy the Jewish infidel.
We're not suffering from moral numbness. We simply have a close-up of what you can only so far fortunately see from a distance.
So, please rethink your position. You might start with asking yourself why you're so quick to think the worst of us. And, as the old Pete Seeger song says, it might be the right time to decide just which side you are on.
Sick, sick, sick!!
When Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan was assassinated in an IAF strike last week, his four wives and 11 of his children died with him. According to his surviving children, the death of the Rayyan family children was not an accident: Rayyan had trained his wives and children to die with him as "martyrs."
Surviving family members spoke to local Arab media and said that in the days before his death, Rayyan has repeatedly asked his children, "Who wants to die with me as a martyr?" The children would respond, "Yes, daddy, we all want to be with you alive or dead."
Rayyan's adult daughter, Wala, said even the younger children wished to die with their father. "If you had asked my four-year-old sister Aisha, who died in the attack, she would have told you that she preferred to die as a martyr," Wala told Ma'an news.
One of Rayyan's daughter-in-laws said she was offered the chance to die with the family. She stopped by the family's large home in Jabaliya and was asked by Rayyan if she wished to die with him, his wives and their children. She agreed to die, but later left the building, shortly before the IAF strike.
As it turned out, when Rayyan offered his daughter-in-law the "opportunity" to die he had already received a phone call from the IDF warning him to evacuate his house due to an impending airstrike.
The 11 children who died with Nizar Rayyan ranged in age from one year old to 16. Another son died years earlier when Rayyan sent him to carry out a suicide bombing in Gaza. Two Israelis were murdered in that attack.
Rayyan was one of Hamas' extremist preachers, and believed that those who die fighting Israel die as "martyrs" and go directly to paradise. He encouraged his followers to have several wives and as many children as possible, in order to provide future soldiers in the fight against Israel. He also encouraged Hamas to take over Judea and Samaria and carry out suicide attacks targeting Jews.
Surviving family members spoke to local Arab media and said that in the days before his death, Rayyan has repeatedly asked his children, "Who wants to die with me as a martyr?" The children would respond, "Yes, daddy, we all want to be with you alive or dead."
Rayyan's adult daughter, Wala, said even the younger children wished to die with their father. "If you had asked my four-year-old sister Aisha, who died in the attack, she would have told you that she preferred to die as a martyr," Wala told Ma'an news.
One of Rayyan's daughter-in-laws said she was offered the chance to die with the family. She stopped by the family's large home in Jabaliya and was asked by Rayyan if she wished to die with him, his wives and their children. She agreed to die, but later left the building, shortly before the IAF strike.
As it turned out, when Rayyan offered his daughter-in-law the "opportunity" to die he had already received a phone call from the IDF warning him to evacuate his house due to an impending airstrike.
The 11 children who died with Nizar Rayyan ranged in age from one year old to 16. Another son died years earlier when Rayyan sent him to carry out a suicide bombing in Gaza. Two Israelis were murdered in that attack.
Rayyan was one of Hamas' extremist preachers, and believed that those who die fighting Israel die as "martyrs" and go directly to paradise. He encouraged his followers to have several wives and as many children as possible, in order to provide future soldiers in the fight against Israel. He also encouraged Hamas to take over Judea and Samaria and carry out suicide attacks targeting Jews.
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