Guy Rundle may want to dismiss and ridicule the significance of Hamas’ explicit commitment to eliminate Israel and kill its people, and its growing ability to fire rockets and mortars into ever-increasing areas of Israel, but Israelis do not.
Indeed, the Israeli public’s overwhelming and sober support for the military operation is a bellwether of the seriousness with which Israelis take the thousands of rockets and mortars that have been fired by Hamas for years, dramatically escalating after Israel’s lock, stock and barrel withdrawal from Gaza in August 2005.
For Rundle to question why the military incursion occurred now is disingenuous. The range and sophistication of missiles and rockets from Gaza into Israel’s southern cities, particularly Sderot with its 20,000 residents, has increased over the last few years, particularly under the cover of last year’s ceasefire.
Hamas can now target and reach strategic assets like power stations and chemical factories in Ashkelon, Israel’s largest and economically critical port at Ashdod and nuclear facilities at Dimona.
According to Rundle’s ludicrous claim, Israel’s leadership is only interested in burnishing its security credentials for re-election purposes, but what kind of responsible government does not respond to rockets being fired at its citizens?
Rundle also ignores the fact that one million Israelis are now under direct threat of rocket attack and it was Hamas’ decision to not renew the six-month ceasefire that ended on 19 December, which they underlined with another barrage of hundreds of rockets and mortars.
Furthermore, regardless of the “low” number of Israeli fatalities, thousands of Israelis have suffered injuries and trauma associated with indiscriminate rockets and mortars landing on their homes and schools. A 2008 study revealed that over 75% of Sderot children displayed symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress syndrome. How many Israeli fatalities, kindergartens flattened and hospitals destroyed are needed before the likes of Rundle will be less disapproving?
Should Israel be punished because it has implemented security systems and responses that are geared towards minimising the number of Israeli victims of rocket attacks?
The tragic deaths of any innocent Gazan brings no comfort to Israelis, who just want to go about their daily lives. But the sad reality is that Hamas fires rockets from civilian areas and uses its own people and children as human shields, knowing full well the propaganda value of Palestinian civilian deaths.
Here’s five things we can all hope for: let Hamas renounce violence as an option, stop its noxious anti-Israel incitement, accept Israel’s legitimate existence, endorse peace as a strategic goal and for Rundle and his ilk to wake up to reality.
Gallant little Israel. I weep for thee! :'(
Well said Brian. However, I fear the Obama government will continue the current US government’s policy only with better PR.
Allon Lee hasn’t read my article very carefully, if he thinks I am ridiculing the Israeli victims of Hamas rocket attacks. Here’s what I said:
“That is not to minimise the effect of rockets falling relentlessly on a civilian population, nor the meaning of the relatively small number of deaths. To say as one commentator did, that the rockets have ‘nagged’ Israelis is to misidentify the act (even if you consider the rockets legitimite resistance). “
Possibly that’s a little compressed, but I think it’s pretty clear that I was acknowledging the relentless psychological toll, and that the deaths – about the same number as one Israeli bomb on an apartment block – couldn’t be disregarded.
Nor do I believe for a second the argument that the use of longer range rockets prompted the current attack – 98% of Hamas rockets are still short range Qassams.
Nor did I get into the question of who broke the ceasefire, of the legitimicy or otherwise of Hamas’s acts, historical fault etc. I simply made the point that to claim a six year rocket campaign as both a measure of your forbearance, and an existential threat authorising unlimited force, was dishonest and cynical.
Allon Lee can take or leave my suggestion that the attack’s motives are political as he wishes – but it’s an opinion shared with a fair few others, not least half the op-ed contributors of Haaretz. Indeed in the 24 hours since the article was published, Lipni, Barak, Netenyahu and Olmert have started openly fighting with each other over war aims, withdrawal conditions, victory standards etc, the first three in a sprint to the electoral finish line, the last desperate not to have another muddled war on his account.
As the Gaza attack starts to look more and more like Lebanon 06, the remix, I’d suggest Lee ponder whether my analysis is not a more accurate picture of this unfolding moral and strategic disaster.
I said “He knows the number, accuracy and range of these missiles has been increasing rapidly.” but I should also have added “and they are continuing too”.
1. A dramatic increase in the extent of rocket fire and mortar shelling (despite
the six months long lull in the fighting) in 2008, the peak year of rocket fire and
mortar shelling, a total of 3,278 rockets and mortar shells landed in Israeli territory
(1,750 rockets and 1,528 mortar shells).
The number of landings in 2008 more than doubled compared to 2007.
2. A significant increase in the number of Israeli residents exposed to rocket
fire within 40 km of the Gaza Strip: before 2008, the city of Sderot (about 20,000
residents) as well as villages around the Gaza Strip were the preferred target of rocket
fire and mortar shelling. In 2008, other cities and hundreds of thousands of Israelis
gradually entered the circle of fire: first the cities of Ashkelon and Netivot, Ashdod, Beersheba, and other cities within a range of 40 kilometers from the Gaza Strip. The rocket attacks created a new reality in which nearly one million Israeli residents (about 15 percent of the entire population) are exposed to rocket fire and mortar shelling in various levels of intensity.
3. A significant improvement in the effectiveness of rockets and mortar shells possessed by Hamas and an increase in their quantity: in 2008, Hamas put into use 122-mm Grad launchers (for ranges of 20.4 km and approximately 40 km) and standard 120-mm mortars, which were smuggled into the Gaza Strip (probably from Iran). Those standard rockets and mortars, significantly different from self-manufactured rockets and mortars, not only increased the range of fire but also increased its effectiveness. That is a result of increasing the rockets’ warhead size and their fragmentation. As for the mortars—the standard 120-mm mortars are more precise and their range is greater than that of the other mortars
4. 6 months more Tel Aviv?
Yes Mark the same as Israel, when the elected Begin,he was a paragon of virtue or Sharon the man who bears responsibility for the massacres in Lebanon. I suppose if you put people in a concentration camp,starve them cause they wont do what you want them to do,kill them at will and thats in GAZA and the West Bank,where the settlers have free reign to kill Palestinians,to steal their land water ect.
Yes Mark as you sow so shall ye reap