A dissenting voice in Arabic

Below is a translation of an article by the Kuwaiti journalist, Abdullah Al Hadlaq. I refer to it in my video: Arab Perspectives on Operation Pillar of Defense.

The article, quite an exceptional one, was published in the Al-Watan newspaper in Kuwait on November 19, 2012.

I bring this piece to your attention because it is my goal to expose you to the Arab voices that advocate for “the Israeli side.”

I hope you find it interesting and valuable.

A Word of Truth: Double Standards and Not Calling Things by their Real Name

by Abdullah Al Hadlaq

When terror organizations in the Gaza Strip, including Hamas, launch rockets on Israeli cities attempting to kill innocent civilians including women and children, the Arab media, almost without exception, calls it “Resistance” or “Jihad.”

When Israel, acting in self-defense, attacks the military strongholds of these organizations in the Gaza Strip, in order to stop the terror of rockets being launched on Israeli cities, the same media calls these reactions “Aggression.”

Hamas’s attacks on Israeli civilians, the Arab media maintains, are the “Legitimate right of the Palestinian Resistance and Jihad.”

Israeli self-defense is, they say, “The aggression of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip”.

And finally, the Arab media – for the most part – call Israeli victims “fatalities”  and names the Palestinian victims “martyrs.”

Hamas started the confrontation with Israel but cannot end it. Following the Israeli retaliation Hamas’s leaders regretted their decision to initiate the confrontation. It reminds me of the reaction of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, who following the 2006 war in Lebanon said, “Had I known the Israeli retaliation would be so powerful I would not have initiated the provocation at all.”

Israel can launch a massive ground operation on a larger scale than the previous ground operation, “Cast Lead” in 2009. Cast Lead included massive strikes on military strongholds of the organizations in the Gaza Strip and it targeted military and political leaders of these organizations.

Iran and its ally Hezbollah are trying to set the region on fire hoping to prevent the inevitable downfall of Assad’s bloody tyranny in Syria.  Israel’s military operation is a clear message to Iran and Hezbollah.

The president of the United States clearly supports Israel’s right to defend itself. Israel takes advantage of that support to strengthen its deterrence capabilities and to destroy the Iranian Fajr missiles smuggled into the Gaza Strip from Syria and South Lebanon.

The Israeli Prime Minister knows that Egypt – at the most – will recall its Ambassador and expel the Israeli Ambassador. Netanyahu remembers that Israeli-Egyptian relations continued also after Egypt called back its Ambassador in 2002.

End Translation

A note:  I was going over some 80 comments to this article on the Palestinian web site called www.alwatanvoice.com where this it was also published. Two comments were reasonable in the sense that they could agree to a certain extent with the writer’s perspective. The rest, as expected, totally reject the article and attack the writer as a “Zionist Agent,” a “Conspirator,” an “Enemy of Arabs,” etc.