Israel's first duty must be to defend its citizens
- The Australian
- November 16, 2012
While calls for caution and restraint are justified, Hamas's culpability is clear. Israel has an unequivocal duty to protect the lives of its citizens against deadly attacks by a terrorist organisation that steadfastly refuses to even acknowledge its right to exist. Since last weekend more than 120 lethal rockets - many supplied by Iran and Syria - have been fired from Gaza, indiscriminately targeting population centres in Israel. That's more than 800 fired by Hamas and associated terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad this year, and 8000 since Israel withdrew from Gaza in a significant act of goodwill and in a gesture towards peace in 2005. At any time, a million Israelis are within range of the rockets and they have less than a minute to find shelter.
Such a situation would be intolerable for any self-respecting country. That is a lesson Hamas, regrettably, has failed to learn. In similar circumstances almost four years ago, Israel launched a three-week operation into Gaza in which 1200 people died. Yet, buoyed by a massive infusion of rockets from Iran, which has vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, Hamas has attacked again. And now, Israel has been forced to go in again. Top Hamas military commander Ahmed al-Jabari, successfully targeted in the first strike of the new operation, masterminded the terrorist organisation's rocket strategy. He oversaw the kidnapping and five-year incarceration in appalling conditions of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and boasted Palestinian terrorists released in the deal that freed Shalit had been responsible for murdering 569 Israeli civilians. His pinpoint targeting in Gaza City should leave Hamas leaders in no doubt about Israel's capabilities. But the crisis, if it is not to get much worse, needs more than military strikes; it needs active intervention by countries such as Egypt, whose new Muslim Brotherhood leaders are Hamas patrons, to insist it is in the interests of Palestinians as much as Israelis to stop the confrontation. Israel's strikes in Gaza are not without extreme risks. Ominously, the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo has warned it will adopt a very different stance to the Mubarak dictatorship. The 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the cornerstone of Middle East peace, could be in danger. Al-Qa'ida-aligned militants in Sinai are restive. In Lebanon,
Hezbollah is armed with Iranian-supplied rockets. Israel is in a cross-border standoff with Syrian forces in the Golan Heights. But Israel cannot reasonably be expected to do anything other than protect its citizens against the outrageous daily aggression launched from Gaza under Hamas control.
Dating back to the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, Israel has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to cede land for peace. The Gaza withdrawal was an example. Yet all it has got in return is a hostile state bristling with rockets, determined to wreak havoc across its border. This is intolerable and the sooner Hamas is forced to see sense, the sooner progress towards Middle East peace can be back on the agenda.
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