Mick Hartley

The Times editorial today – "No one can condone the civilian suffering in Gaza of the past two weeks. Nor should anyone doubt who is, in the end, responsible":

For all Israel's claims to have launched only targeted strikes on Hamas targets, it has shown scant concern for civilians caught in Gaza's crossfire in the past two weeks. Yet this is as nothing next to the contempt shown by Hamas.

Unlike the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), the paramilitary overlords of the Gaza Strip use civilians routinely for protection in the knowledge that many will be sacrificed to Israeli airstrikes. Unlike the IDF, they deliberately target civilians with their own rockets. At least 70 such rockets were launched from Gaza into Israel in December. This was the criminal act that triggered the current crisis. It was as simple and blatant as the history of the Holy Land is complex, and every time that bewildered Gazans are corralled by Hamas fighters into a human shield, it is compounded by rank cowardice. […]

Where Fatah at least speaks the language of negotiation, Hamas has explicitly rejected a two-state solution. It exists chiefly to promote a nihilistic doctrine of self-defence through terror, and to foster a delusional pan-Islamism with no tolerance for unbelievers, let alone a Jewish state.

Israel has a powerful ally in the United States. Its critics are wont to condemn this alliance as a Jewish axis blind to heart-rending realities in Gaza and to the sacrifices necessary for peace. No one can be unmoved by the suffering witnessed by the Norwegian surgeon who texted friends to tell them “we're wading in death, blood [and] amputees”. But the way to end it is not to abandon Israel. It is to defeat Hamas.

For some background on that Norwegian surgeon, by the way, see here.