Wednesday, November 01, 2006

1-Nov-06: Dark Clouds Over Gaza

Here's a laconic statement emanating from the spokesperson's office of the IDF this morning:
IDF forces have begun operating in the town of Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip. The operation is directed against terror organizations in the town and its goal is to disrupt and prevent the launching of Qassam rockets into Israel. Terror organizations have launched over 300 rockets into Israel from the Beit Hanun area since the beginning of the year.
No one knows at this stage whether this latest fighting in the Beit Hanun area or elsewhere in the Gaza Strip is going to be localized, or will spread beyond. Israeli society has little desire or appetite for another war, but most Israelis - and very few people outside Israel - recognize that the day-to-day bombardments from Gaza of never-occupied, never-disputed Israeli towns, cities, settlements and homes constitute an intolerable situation.

Three hundred rockets since 1st January 2006... where else in the world can you imagine a situation like that? No sane government or community would tolerate it. But over there on the other side of the fence, the government (some of the time, that means Hamas; some of the time, Fatah) not only don't stop it. They actively feed the flames, and provide it with an ideological and theological foundation. They're up to their eyebrows in premeditated murderous acts of terror on a daily basis, and don't deny it.

And the international media, never keen on interpreting events that might - Heaven forfend - place Israelis in a sympathetic light as victims, have done a first-class job of ensuring that very few people outside this region know the real reason why Israeli service personnel are now blowing up houses, roads and tunnels and placing themselves in harm's way.

As we never tire of explaining, this makes the members of the international media (editors, reporters, photographers, managers) complicit in the deaths and injuries that stem daily from ongoing terror.

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