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The children of Gaza
Here we sit in Oregon, safe and undisturbed, watching the TV news and seeing footage of little boys and girls lying in hospital beds in Gaza. Some have horrible wounds, more or less bandaged up. The children were wounded in Israeli air strikes, attacks in which a reported 180 people have been killed and many more, including those children, were hurt. And we wonder who started this. And why?
We are supposed to feel sorry for those kids, and we do. But sympathy for them should not extend to the cause for which they were harmed. They are the victims not just of Israeli bombs but more fundamentally of the irrational fanaticism of Hamas. This organization, dedicated to the destruction of Israel, is in charge of the government of the Gaza strip.
It is Hamas that launched hundreds of rockets against Israel. As of Monday’s reports these attacks has not killed anyone. Still, no country can tolerate a barrage or exploding rockets lobbed into its cities, so Israel tried air strikes to destroy the rocket launchers. In the densely populated hell hole that is the Gaza strip, death and destruction are the inevitable result.
This is what Hamas wants. What else could it be? It knows it can’t destroy Israel militarily. All it can hope to do is continue to undermine support for Israel around the world, and especially in the United States. That’s the point of the rocket barrages. By launching those rockets, the Gaza authorities show they want the retaliation that will lead to pictures of gravely wounded children on European and American TV. (hh)
Tags: Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Middle East conflict