By Harry Storm
As the horrific events unfolded in southern Israel a week ago, an article by an anti-Zionist Israeli professor working at a British University referred to Gaza as having been under “siege” by Israel. Like so many previous references to a “siege” by pro-Palestinian – or, more accurately – Israel-hating activists, this was a lie, in this case a transparent effort to provide “context” for Hamas’ barbarism, even as Hamas terrorists slaughtered Israeli civilians in their homes and at a music festival for peace, paraded dead semi-nude women in the back of a van while shouting Allahu Akhbar (God is great), kidnapped even babies as hostages, leaving behind such a carnage that it took days to discover the full depravity.
In fact, Israel has never had Gaza under siege – until now. A “siege” is defined as “the surrounding and blockading of a city, town, or fortress by an army attempting to capture it.” Israel has never surrounded Gaza, whose southern border is with Egypt, not Israel. Nor has Israel attempted to capture Gaza – in fact, it withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and has never tried to recapture it since. There has been a partial blockade of Gaza by Israel (and Egypt) for many years, but electricity, food, and medical supplies were always shipped by Israel to Gaza, despite the unrelenting hostility from Gaza’s Hamas rulers. If anything, it is Israel, surrounded on all sides by peoples who in the main want it wiped off the map, that has been under siege since its creation in 1948.
The use of the term “siege” to describe the partial blockade of Gaza, is, much like “Israeli apartheid,” and the many other slurs and lies hurled at the Jewish state, part of the misleading attempt by Palestinians and assorted other Israel-haters to provide a phony context to this invasion by Hamas forces, just as it has provided for all Hamas actions against Israel since 2006.
And yet, the so-called context providers who call for peace and justice for the Palestinians ignore the real context for the events they deplore: namely (1) that every peace offer by Israel (and by Jews in pre-independence Palestine) have been rejected in favour of a loser-take-all demand that Israel cease to exist and be replaced by a Palestinian state; (2) every clash between Israel and Hamas since the first in 2006 has been initiated by Hamas; and (3) that Hamas and other Palestinian groups call for the destruction of Israel, not the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But given the scale and barbarity of the slaughter now, one might have thought that those ostensibly in search of truth might have realized the context their narrative provides might be misplaced.
No such luck. As has always been the case, the real historical context is unlikely to be found in the woke/left infested Western media. As might be expected, the hard left media could not even contain itself from blaming Israel for the current crisis, even as Hamas were engaging in mass slaughter gleefully before the cameras. Most traditional media tastefully waited until Israel’s counteroffensive began, although some, like the BBC, from the start minimized Hamas’ actions despite the increasing number of butchered and captured Israeli civilians (currently at 1300 and 150, respectively), referring to the events as an “incursion,” while figuratively wringing hands over the expected Israeli retaliation.
The reaction was entirely predictable, given the coverage of previous hostilities in 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014 and in May this year. In those encounters, support for Israel lasted only until the Israeli retaliation began. “Israel has the right to defend itself” quickly became “Israel has the right to defend itself, BUT” and governments that only days earlier were fully supportive of Israel’s right to self-defence began urging – and in the case of the U.S., compelling – restraint.
Even after this deadly Hamas invasion, it has already begun, also predictably, at the United Nations. Yesterday, UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres, armed with phony context and unaware that Israel exited Gaza in 2005, blamed the occupation for Hamas’ barbarous assault. “This most recent violence does not come in a vacuum,” Guterres said. “The reality is that it grows out of a long-standing conflict, with a 56-year-long occupation and no political end in sight. While I recognise Israel’s legitimate security concerns, I also remind Israel that military operations must be conducted in strict accordance with international humanitarian law.”
Gutteres’ recognition of Israel’s legitimate security concerns after the slaughter of 1300 and the capture of 150 hostages is clearly overshadowed by his “deep distress” that “Israel will initiate a complete siege of the Gaza Strip, nothing allowed in — no electricity, food, or fuel.”
Additionally, Gutteres appears to be utterly taken in by Palestinian demands for “their own state” without realizing those demands include an end to the Israeli state. The alternative is that he shares the lack of concern among a vast number of people worldwide for Israel in particular and Jews in general. And there’s a word for that.
Meanwhile, the foreign minister of the pretend state of Lebanon, Abdallah Bouhabib, says he has “received assurances” that Hezbollah “will not join the fray” unless Israel attacks Lebanon. The assurance is worth as much as any by Hezbollah, but all he can do is repeat what his superiors in Hezbollah say. Of course, in real countries, governments don’t require assurances from terrorist organizations in their midst: they provide and enforce such assurances themselves. But Lebanon is no longer a real country but rather a fief of Iran, with Hezbollah as its proxy, and Hezbollah has already broken said assurance, albeit in a minor way (so far).
Pressure from Western countries, including the U.S., hasn’t yet begun. But despite their stated support for Israel as the extent of the atrocities committed by Hamas became clear, one has to wonder if the resolve of Western governments to support Israel will remain strong once the body count in Gaza rises– aided of course by the Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields – and the Palestinian propaganda apparatus goes into high gear.
Although the resolve of Western countries may buckle – and recent history shows that to be a distinct possibility – Israeli resolve shouldn’t and mustn’t after an attack of such magnitude and barbarity. Retaliation likely will not be a limited bombing campaign as in the past, but a full-throated effort to finish off Hamas and its Islamic Jihad allies once and for all by any means.
That is what the Israeli public is clamouring for, despite the plight of the hostages, now that it realizes the catastrophic consequences of Israel fighting another war with Gaza with one hand tied behind its back to placate a world that doesn’t have its interests at heart.
