Reality Check: War is War!

No sensitive person relishes seeing any individual, be he an innocent or a terrorist, suffer; but the context is all important. Israel is at war, fighting to preserve its security, the release of hostages still held by Hamas, and the degrading of a proscribed terrorist group that has vowed the destruction of the Zionist state.

The West has conveniently forgotten what is at stake here for the people of Israel. In fact, as we know from countless demonstrations around the world, soon after the atrocities of 7 October 2023, the liberal, “anything goes” democracies, were happy to invert reality so Israel became, almost overnight, the perpetrator of the attack on the Nova festival rather than attributing blame to Hamas fighters. This inversion of reality and its blind adherence of thousands of people worldwide is truly disturbing.

Britain’ Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, no friend of Israel, has condemned Israel’s military action in Gaza, stating it is without moral justification. Is the desire to bring home those abducted by Hamas morally indefensible; is determination to end the scourge of a vicious enemy morally wrong; is the imperative to protect citizens of Israel a crime? Was it wrong of Britain to hold the German population who voted in considerable numbers in support of the Nazi Party, responsible for the rise of Hitler,  to fight a war in which the objective was victory over an evil regime? Emphatically, no. The fact so many Palestinians in Gaza voted in support of Hamas, knowing what this organization stood for, genocide, does not exonerate them from culpability. We are told the elections held in Gaza in 2006 were democratically conducted, and which saw Hamas defeat the PLO for control of the territory. Those who are granted a vote have to take moral responsibility for their choice. We have seen many examples of many ululating Palestinians taking great pleasure in the deaths of Israelis and who have given fulsome support to Hamas’ actions.

Israel, having been condemned by the international community for taking action to achieve the release of hostages and to prevent Hamas from firing missiles into civilian areas, has now been accused of deliberately starving the people of Gaza. Reports from that territory claim that thousands of babies are likely to die from malnutrition and the adult population is in imminent danger of dying from lack of food and medical supplies. If this were true, why has Hamas not supplied the eager western press with a torrent of photographic evidence? The contrast between the dearth of hard evidence in support of the alleged famine in Gaza and the daily diet of the death toll provided by the Hamas Health Ministry should, in an unbiased fair World, be sufficient to raise questions about the reliability of any data supplied by Hamas; but, no, Israel is cast as the aggressor and no amount of reasoned argument will change the minds of the misguided West. How long Trump will remain a steadfast supporter of Israel is in doubt. So far, the few utterances emanating from the White House, shows a cooling of relations between Trump and Netanyahu; and as we have seen in Trump’s treatment of Zelensky, the US President is, too, inclined to invert reality!

How should Israel respond to mounting international pressure? To ignore the calls for a cessation in military action cannot be lightly dismissed, and allowing food aid trucks is a move in the right direction. I favor a staged withdrawal from Gaza, a massive defensive barrier between Israel and Gaza being constructed, with all necessary firepower to respond to any attacks from Hamas. Whether there is any prospect of the release of the remaining hostages, some of whom are undoubtedly dead, and the scant chance of an agreed ceasefire in what is by any other name a war, is difficult to predict.

We all want peace, just like the people of Britain and occupied Europe wanted to be rid of Nazi oppression, but how to achieve it is the conundrum. The only way to defeat Hitler was by military means, and the only way to destroy Hamas and other terrorist organizations is by force. Israel cannot negotiate with people who refuse to shift their position from advocating the destruction of the Zionist state. Success has been made in normalizing relations between Israel and a number of Arab states. Perhaps the focus should be on these countries putting pressure on terrorist groups to give up the Kalashnikov in favor of negotiation.