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By Jock L. Falkson
January 10, 2007
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Of all the active terrorists in the world, Palestinian terrorists alone enjoy the protection of so called human shields. Because of all the victims of terrorism Israel alone is most sensitive to the death of innocents. Can you think of another country assaulted by terrorism which has apologized for unintended civilian fatalities?
Palestinian terrorists have learned to exploit Israel's sensitivities by centering their operations in civilian areas. To quote Gedrich and Paul Valley: "... they disguise themselves as civilians and hide among civilian populations with weapons stored and discharged from mosques, schools, hospitals, marketplaces, private residences and public roads."
Yet Israel stands accused of deliberate and wantonly spilling the blood of Palestinian civilians when casualties occur.
Palestinian PR has so successfully demonized Israel that today we feel it better to endure daily Kassam attacks from Gaza, rather than exercise our basic right of self defense. Such is the power of their PR that Israel no longer preempts attacks by targeting the planners, their manifold helpers, and the triggermen actually caught in the act of launching the Kassams before fleeing to "civilian" safety.
The simple PR stratagem which has brought this about is the fierce Palestinian clamor orchestrated in mainstream media (and supporting NGOs) that Israel is once again killing their civilians.
This calumny of course blithely ignores the fact that the "uniforms" worn by Palestinian terrorists is the same dress worn by their human shields, i.e. civilian clothes. Which makes it inherently difficult, if not impossible, to identify the actual perpetrators as distinct from their civilian accomplices.
What galls is the fact that Palestinian Kassams are deliberately and unashamedly targeted at killing and wounding the greatest number of Israeli civilians. (That it hasn't yet happened is a matter of pure luck.) Yet there's not a word of criticism from the mainstream media about the terrorists' brazen intentions.
Nor do we hear a word from the mainstream media or Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, or the Security Council, about Palestinian 'disproportionate fire". Yet what could be more disproportionate than Palestinian rockets fired on Sderot and other towns when not even an Israeli stone is thrown in retaliation?
The rocketeers cannot set up their Kassam firing operations without the enabling help of accomplices. These include the planners... and those who purchase and store the weaponry
... who provide transport and safe houses... who feed, sleep and hide the triggermen. And yes, their misguided "human shields" too.
Each accomplice is actively complicit in every Kassam attack as are those who remain in their houses as human shields. Active or passive they are unquestionably accomplices and clearly deserve the same fate for doing their bit in a war zone.
Yet rather than face the public opprobrium generated by the pro-Palestinian media ready to denounce Israel for killing "civilians," Israel has not retaliated in any way. Consequently the psychologically wrecked citizens of Sderot are exposed to daily explosions and near misses which have made life unbearable for them. The citizens are living under reign of terror and their town is being ruined.
Israel has always underestimated the power of the successful Palestinian PR. With the result that it has been forced to pay for its consequences: in the lives of its people killed and wounded, and the cost of making good or replacing damaged assets. However, the cost to families of the killed and wounded can neither be measured, repaired, nor repaid.
Worse still, Israel appears to have cravenly bowed to Hamas threats that if we retaliate they would immediately respond by increasing the number of rockets fired. I'm willing to bet that if the families of a dozen members of Israel's Knesset lived in Sderot the Minister of Defense would quickly instruct the IDF to respond militarily. Even if it led to another dirty little war.
How sad that instead of preventing and returning fire, the IDF has been ordered merely to observe and report. I was pleased to read in the circumstances that IDF generals have privately been protesting the government's show of impotence/incompetence.
I wonder what are the chances that some day, some Israeli generals, tired of incompetent political bumbling, will decide to take matters into their own hands. I would hope they talk about this sort of thing among themselves, not particularly in relation to the continuing Kassam onslaught, but far more important, in response to Iran's nuclear threat
It might be a good day for Israel when the generals choose to take over from an inept and irresolute government... and provide an effective solution to the anxious children of Israel. A short term solution, of course.
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