By Esther Korson
Today, the 39th day of “Operation Protective Edge,” is the last day of a 72 hour truce. There is no way to know as yet whether or not the truce will be extended—Hamas continues to insist that it will begin firing rockets again—but whatever happens, I’d like to share some things with you about this conflict. It may end tonight, or it may begin again after midnight. But here are some facts that I would like for you to know.
During this time of conflict, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror organizations launched 3356 rockets at Israel, hoping that each rocket would kill innocent civilians. 2648 fell within Israeli territory. with 2532 landing in open spaces (thank You, Lord!) and 116 in populated areas. 119 launching attempts failed. 578 missiles were intercepted over cities and communities by the Iron Dome anti-missile system. There were 1843 killed in Gaza. 1068 of those Gazan casualties were terrorists. Major news networks, like BBC, New York Times and al-Jazeera have now admitted that while Hamas has tried to accuse Israel of indiscriminately killing civilians, the majority of deaths have been militant men between the ages of 20 -29 and the Hamas statistics have been false and misleading. The IDF stated that they have killed 253 Hamas operatives, 147 Islamic Jihad operatives, 65 operatives of various agencies, and 603 operatives whose exact affiliation is unknown. That totals 1068 terrorist deaths. With the huge number of targets having been hit primarily by Israeli air and naval strikes, the number of civilians killed is amazingly low due to the care that the army has taken. Every loss of life is tragic, but most of those could have been avoided if Hamas did not cynically use civilians as human shields.
Sadly, 64 Israeli soldiers lost their lives in the conflict. Israeli targets included 1678 rocket launchers and storage facilities, 997 command and control centers, and 237 regime sites supporting Hamas’ military wing. 32 tunnels were unearthed and destroyed in the ground defensive. 82,201 reservists were called up for service. During the entire operation, Israel continually sent aid into Gaza, including 1491 trucks of food, 220 trucks with humanitarian aid, and 106 trucks carrying medical equipment.
There is real carnage in the world. 200,000 Syrians have been murdered, with terrible things happening to people in Iraq and other places around the globe. But it is only tiny Israel that is being vilified throughout the world, with huge, angry anti-Israel demonstrations in many world cities. It’s astonishing! (Genesis 12: 3, hello!)
Knesset Member Meir Sheetrit reiterated what I explained in a previous blog. “Israel did everything possible to prevent any innocent people to be killed or injured. We did our best. The other side tried to kill as many Israelis as possible. In just over 20 years more than 80,000 missiles have been fired at us from Gaza. What would other countries do if hundreds of missiles were shot at their countries?
“I remember the US in Afghanistan. They killed thousands of people from high in the sky, from far away. They ordered their pilots to bomb the areas from 3000 meters so as not to endanger their pilots. They killed thousands—I remember one case where they killed 5000 civilians at once.
“No other army in the world tried so hard to call everyone by phone, to send flyers, to ask people to leave their homes to protect the lives of innocent people in this conflict. So what else can we do?” (IBA News)
And now, before I close this section on ‘Operation Protective Edge’, I’d like to quote British journalist Melanie Phillips in an interview on Israel’s Saturday night world news program with host Yaakov Ahimeir. Even though she is sharing from a British perspective, what she said is equally true in many nations in Europe and around the world. Just prior to this interview, tens of thousands angrily marched in London in solidarity with Hamas and against Israel.
Melanie: There is a mood in Britain now which I think is really rather dangerous. In my view it has been incited by media reporting which has been dreadfully warped and false and distorted because it has not reported at all what the Hamas is actually doing in Gaza. It has not shown the use of human shields, it has not shown the rockets being fired next to schools and shelters. It has not interviewed the Hamas about what its aims are which would bring out that it intends to destroy Israel and the Jews across the world. So the British public, viewing scenes of death and destruction in Gaza has come to blame Israel. It perceives that Israel has reacted in a disproportionate manner, has behaved with reckless abandon in killing children. The fact that Israel is the most moral army in the world, that it imposes upon its own army, the IDF, rules of engagement which prohibits it from killing civilians wherever possible, avoiding such a situation wherever possible, that fact is almost completely ignored and unknown. And so not surprisingly, the British people (who I must say in the last few years have been not well-disposed towards Israel anyway), have now been inflamed to a point where I think that the situation is quite dangerous.
Yaakov: Could you call it media incitement?
Melanie: Yes. They’ve been incited by the media and the media has also acted as an accessory to the Hamas, as an accessory to the incitement and manipulation to violence in public opinion which it has facilitated.
Yaakov: What can Israel do to correct the picture?
Melanie: In general it reflects a problem that Israel has had for a long time, which is a complete absence of a strategic understanding of the war that is being waged against Israel year in and year out which is aside from the military wars that it has to endure. This war is a psychological war, a war of the mind, a war of manipulation, a war of black propaganda. Israel still doesn’t appreciate the importance of having to defend itself against that war. In my view what Israel should be doing is investing a huge amount of money and people in fighting this warfare and that would mean a strategic understanding that the threats to Israel come not just through the military threats through all the people around Israel that threaten it, but also from public opinion in the West.
Yaakov: I remember you criticized very harshly the British intelligentsia.
Melanie: It’s hard to explain the malice, the hostility, and the irrationality of the intelligentsia towards Israel. You would think, wouldn’t you, that Israel, being the only democracy in the Middle East, the only place where Muslims have freedom, have human rights and freedom of expression and freedom of religion; the only place where Muslim women are treated decently as equal citizens. You would think they would realize that in the whole of the Arab world, women, gay people, dissidents, people who don’t conform are not only treated badly, but they are persecuted, they are jailed, and they are executed. You would think that the British left wing as committed as it supposedly is to the advancement of human progress and human rights would embrace Israel and condemn the Arab and Muslim world. On the contrary, Israel is the only country it condemns. It’s an animosity against Israel which defies reason, defies logic, defies morality, defies the very things that the left wing intelligentsia believes in and yet this anti-Israel madness is getting worse by the day… (IBA News)
Now here is a happy note to end with! The United States Congress (unlike the State Department) has always been firmly in Israel’s camp. And last week they once again came through with shining colours. “Israel is our friend and Israel’s enemies are our enemies,” House Speaker John Boeher tweeted shortly after the measure to fund $225 million for the Iron Dome missile defense system passed the final legislative hurdle by a vote of 395 in favour with 8 against. No debate was held on the hill in the Senate early last Friday. It passed with unanimous consent!
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