Reaffirming the Right of Israel to Exist in the Face of Hamas Attacks in Gaza

Mort Zuckerman

To achieve the extermination of Israel, Hamas is ready to sacrifice its followers: "We are not," says Haniya, "seekers of office but seekers of martyrdom." The Palestinian people are like the prisoners in a hijacked plane: hostage to the death cult of radical Islamists. Hamas calculates that no state can tolerate its citizens being vulnerable day after day to the russian roulette of rocket fire that hits children, kindergartens, playgrounds, and hospitals. The attacks are designed to provoke Israel while its perpetrators hide behind their own civilians and keep women and children in their forces. They keep TV cameras at the ready to transmit every image of dead Palestinians, especially children. Except for dead Israelis, there is nothing Hamas leaders like better than dead Palestinians, given the global media's appetite for pictures—all to damage the image of Israel. Who else but Hamas leaders would put their headquarters in a hospital or move about in the street only when they are surrounded by children or carry them in their arms because they reckon this will protect them from the more scrupulous Israelis?

They are abetted in this cynical game by the United Nations World Relief Association headquartered in Gaza, headed by and staffed by Palestinians. U.N. schools in Gaza have long ago stopped being just schools where children are taught. They are places of refuge for Hamas terrorists—and points of provocation. There is video footage of terrorists firing mortar rounds from the U.N. school and then running so that others might pay the price for their deadly work. Haniya and other Hamas leaders openly boast about the effectiveness of their human shield tactics, yet it is Israel that gets blamed when some of them die.

Israeli aid. The hypocrisy of it all is manifest on the issue of humanitarian aid. Who else but Israel would suspend the war effort for three hours every couple of days to aid in the provision of humanitarian assistance? Could you imagine England doing something like that when it was being bombarded by Hitler's V-2 rockets during WWII? Israel delivers to Gaza about 2,500 tons a day of food and fuel and other vital supplies. Hamas repeatedly attacks this mercy operation. Last May I visited the border and saw firsthand the result of these attacks on Israelis whose sole purpose for being there was to place bales of humanitarian aid on big flat-bed trucks, drive them through the crossings, deposit them 150 yards on the other side, and return. A week earlier, suicide terrorists exploded bomb-laden cars adjacent to one of the crossings.

The unthinking street crowds in European capitals with their Hamas flags don't give Israel credit for these humanitarian efforts nor its strenuous efforts to avoid civilian casualties: Leaflets are dropped and warnings phoned, even though this will alert the terrorists to escape. The protesters give Hamas a free pass for murder.

How rare it is for the truth to penetrate the moral fog! The Czech foreign minister, Karel-Schwarzenberg, now the president of the European Union, asks a good question. Given that Hamas "deliberately puts its military targets in civilian centers," he asks, "why am I one of the few that have expressed understanding for Israel? I enjoy the luxury of being able to tell the truth."

President Bush has the clearest perception of what is at stake. At Israel's 60th anniversary he said: "Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong because the United States of America stands with you." Alas, this pledge was shamefully compromised by one member of that audience, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. When it came to a vote at the U.N., the United States abstained. But for some reason best known to her, she drafted and urged the U.N. into supporting a resolution that called for a cease-fire without the protections of prior agreements, or the cessation of rocket attacks, or the prevention of Hamas rearming itself. In short, she was behind a resolution guaranteeing a continuance of the terrorism.