“Why aren’t you protesting about the plight of innocent Israeli families living with the glorified state sponsored terrorism of Hamas and their rockets?”

According to the BBC last Wednesday, 1,013 Palestinians have died and only 13 Israelis, and 10 of those were soldiers. So protesting about the plight of the Israelis does seem a bit bizzare.

“Now, let me give you some figures, which I think are the most crucial figures in understanding this conflict. Before the ceasefire came into effect in July of 2008, the monthly number of rockets fired—Kassam rockets, homemade Kassam rockets, fired from the Gaza Strip on Israeli settlements and towns in southern Israel was 179. In the first four months of the ceasefire, the number dropped dramatically to three rockets a month, almost zero. I would like to repeat these figures for the benefit of your listeners. Pre-ceasefire, 179 rockets were fired on Israel; post-ceasefire, three rockets a month. This is point number one, and it’s crucial.

“And my figures are beyond dispute, because they come from the website of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. But after initiating this war, this particular table, neat table, which showed the success of the ceasefire, was withdrawn and replaced with another table of statistics, which is much more obscure and confusing. Israel—the Foreign Ministry withdrew these figures, because it didn’t suit the new story.

“The new story said that Hamas broke the ceasefire. This is a lie. Hamas observed the ceasefire as best as it could and enforced it very effectively. The ceasefire was a stunning success for the first four months. It was broken not by Hamas, but by the IDF. It was broken by the IDF on the 4th of November, when it launched a raid into Gaza and killed six Hamas men.”

When asked what is his definition of a terror, he replied:

“My definition of “terror” is the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. And by this definition, Hamas is a terrorist organization. But by the same token, Israel is practicing state terror, because it is using violence on a massive scale against Palestinian civilians for political purposes. I don’t hold a brief for Hamas. Hamas is not a paragon of virtue. Its leaders are not angels. They harm civilians indiscriminately. Killing civilians is wrong, period. That applies to Hamas, and it applies equally to the state of Israel.”

This conflict will end by negotiation: they always do. Until Israel stops treating the Palestinians in Gaza as prisoners, Hamas will not stop resisting. Until Hamas stops resisting, Israel will not stop its attacks on Gaza.

http://www.bepj.org.uk/gaza-cardiff

If Hamas did not fire rockets, Israel would not retaliate.

Proportianallity does not and should not come into this and it is an extremely poor excuse to use.

If Hamas does not stop it’s state sponsored terrorism then Israel has every right to defend its’s self using every resource available to it.