21-May-10: Once again: Incoming jihadist rockets

It's a lovely, sunny Friday morning here. Late spring, and just a day after the country took a day off to honour the festival of Shavuot (Pentecost). A perfect time (when isn't?) for the thuggish jihadists of Gazan Hamastan to send us a reminder of their devotion to a brighter and better future for us, for them and - especially - for their children.

One of their numberless Qassam rockets, fired from somewhere in Northern Gaza, crashed into Israel last night (Thursday night). It landed on the outskirts of Ashkelon, fortunately with not enough accuracy to achieve what they wanted it to achieve. But as we keep writing here, their purpose in using what are terrorist tools and not strategic weapons is to hit anyone and anything as long as it's Israeli. And even if, as happens routinely, the rocket falls short and hits someone or something on their side of the Gazan border - well, that's good too if it reminds people of how desperate, utterly desperate, the jihadists are for a better life.

The Israeli air force responded during the early hours of this morning with a precision air attack on three Gazan tunnels - one at the northern end of Gaza and two in the south. According to a statement released by the IDF spokesman's office this morning, the tunnels, located near the fence surrounding Gaza, are for bringing terrorists into Israel to attack Israelis. Every Israeli knows how threatening those tunnels are and why they are there.

The fact that this Hamas-backed rocket attack is barely covered, if at all, by reporters and editors outside Israel is not new. The Israeli countermeasures, as always, will get news coverage minus any meaningful context. Israel launches overnight air raids on Gaza (AFP) and Israel launches Gaza air raids (Straits Times) are just two familiar-sounding examples that, along with numerous other similar monodirectional reports, have gone to air in the past couple of hours.

The wearying reality is that global public opinion is encouraged, via partial and often wilfully inaccurate reporting, to accept the inevitability of Gazan rage and its explosive consequences. And not just its inevitability but its jutifiability. Israeli defensive measures against terrorist attacks on its civilians and communities, on the other hand, are deprecated and delegitimized. And the mounting human toll of rampant jihadism is swept under the rug.

Getting this issue wrong is why terrorism is on the rise and the security of ordinary people everywhere, not just in this troubled region, is on the decline.