Israel Matzav

CHORUS OF HYPOCRITES

Amnon Dankner, editor of Ma'ariv, takes on the chorus of dhimmis who call on Israel not to defend itself against the Palestinian Kassam attacks (before it was conclusively established that the 'Palestinians' killed their own on the beach at Gaza last Friday night):

[Translation provided by Israel Government Press Office]

Even if it is eventually proven that that which killed and maimed on the Gazan beach was an Israeli shell, that was fired - of course - without the intention of attacking innocents, there is still no place for the moral indignation that represents - in actuality - a very faulty position, precisely from a moral point-of-view. The State of Israel has every right in the world to aggressively defend its citizens from Kassam rocket fire. This right must permit it that which the IDF is doing - to shell open areas from which the Palestinian cells are launching the Kassam rockets. The Palestinians in Gaza can only make claims on themselves: We withdrew from the Gaza Strip, down to the last centimeter, in a painful, wrenching step; we shattered communities and families and we are entitled to demand complete quiet from the Palestinian side in Gaza. We are also entitled to respond with force when the lives of Israeli residents are put at risk and to try to remove the harrowing nightmare that is hanging over our heads day and night.

It is very easy to claim, as [Israeli author] David Grossman did here yesterday, that all of these military efforts are in vain because the Palestinian fighting continues. But if we do not take the steps that we are taking in the face of this aggression, would it be better? Will the Palestinians not be encouraged to continue with greater impetus and thereby claim many victims? The call to declare a ceasefire and sit down to unconditional negotiations without preconditions no longer sounds as good since the experience of those blood-soaked years after the Oslo accords. It has an anachronistic and irrelevant taste, certainly after the Palestinians crowned themselves with an extremist and uncompromising Hamas administration. To think that this would lead to quiet and bring a halt to the killing of Israelis is surprising in both its naivete and its non-learning from experience. Once, my lot was with those who thought that if we would only be nicer, show more goodwill, be more humane and offer more concessions - everything would be just fine. But the lesson that we learned, and which cost us so much blood, is that this 1960's-flower-children-who-have-not-really-matured approach which thinks that if we just give peace a chance, it will crown us with garlands and we will be borne by white Hamas doves; if only we do not respond with force and do not stand for our lives, a warm sun of marvelous tranquility will shine upon us - is so stupid in the perspective of what we have gone through, that the brain bubbles with astonishment at hearing such things.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:47 PM