War on Terror; From the US to Israel

Thirteen years ago these days, two dozen of terrorists were working on their plans to carry out a new attack. This attack occurred a month later. Terrorists hijacked four commercial aircrafts in the US airspace. Two planes crashed the World Trade Center towers in NY, the third one hit the Pentagon and the last one crashed into the ground, supposedly when passengers and crew interfered. Almost three thousand Americans were killed in just a few hours.

In retaliation for these heinous acts of terror, the White House launched a massive military operation. They attacked and occupied two countries that were located thousands of miles away from the US mainland, killed hundreds of thousands of people, and American drones are still in action against the terrorists in Pakistan.

But that was not enough for one of the largest countries in the world with a population of three hundred million and the best army whose security had been jeopardized for only “a few hours”. Ever since the 9/11 attacks, new legislation has been enacted and new intelligent services were built.

Those “few hours” have prompted some security precautions like the NSA’s monitoring of hundreds of millions of people’s communication. NSA’s files leaked by the whistleblower Edward Snowden show that the US security services had been bugging their allies’ phones too.

Because of those “few hours”, thousands (if not millions) of American Muslims have been kept under surveillance for more than a decade. Furthermore, thousands of suspects were arrested around the world; some of which were transferred to Guantanamo bay and tortured.

Meanwhile, there is a country on the other side of the earth; her population is just 3% of the US’, and it is even smaller than New Jersey! Unlike The United States of America, this small country is located in the heartland of terrorism. Some of these terrorists actually live inside this tiny country. And surprisingly enough, this country was threatened to be wiped off the face of the earth by all its neighbors for half of the time it has been existed.

The security of the US was jeopardized for only a few hours, but Israelis have been living in the shadow of terrorists all these years. While the US army was waging war on two sovereign countries across the globe, suicide bombers were blowing up themselves on the buses, in restaurants and at shopping malls in Israel. At least 1000 Israeli and almost 100 foreigner casualties were the results of the Second Intifada (2000-2005).

Thousands of rockets and projectiles have been fired on Israeli cities since 2005 that killed many people and if it was not for the Iron Dome, the figure had reached thousands a long time ago.

If you think that the Mid-East conflict is different from “the war on terrorism”, I must say that you are WRONG! Although it is a nationalistic subject for the leaders of PLO or Jordan, for Hamas and Islamic Jihad it is a battle for Islam.

Just like Al-Qaeda and ISIL, Hamas is looking forward to establishing a new Caliphate. It has been the desire for all the Islamic movements ever since the Ottoman Empire, as the last Islamic Caliphate collapsed and they became like “orphans”. The only difference between The Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Islamic Jihad with Al-Qaeda and ISIL is the tactics they deploy to reach this objective. While The Muslim Brotherhood seeks a step-by-step tactic, ISIL and Al-Qaeda prefer a more aggressive and direct tactic towards this goal.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its proxies like Hamas want to hold onto the power in their countries through elections first, and as soon as they feel powerful enough, they will start new Crusades. But there is a difference between this Crusade and the old Crusades; this time, there are millions of Muslims in the hearth of the Christian countries, and many of those are ready to join this “Jihad” from within the borders of “Dar-al-Harb” (The land of unbelievers).

Back to our main subject, how can we expect the tiny Israel to respond to Apocalyptic Hamas according to the laws that were written for conflicts between civilized nations? Do not forget that the way of life in the US and in some extent, in the UK was changed forever when their security was in jeopardy for a few hours. And keep in mind that more than 20% of Israel’s population is Arabs.

And even with all the difficulties, Israel has tried its best to act according to the International rules of engagement in this conflict.

Finally, the author believes that if there are acts that can be defined as “war crimes”, the soldiers involved in those specific operations and their immediate commanders must be brought to justice by either national or international courts. And of course, all the suspects from both sides must be tried and not just Israelis.