The right of self-defence

3 January 2009

Barack Obama got to the heart of the matter in July when he visited Sderot in Israel, a town in range of Hamas missiles.

Barack Obama got to the heart of the matter in July when he visited Sderot in Israel, a town in range of Hamas missiles. ‘If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep,’ Mr Obama said, ‘I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect the Israelis to do the same thing.’ No less acutely, he observed that it is ‘very hard to negotiate with a group that is not representative of a nation state, does not recognise your right to exist, has consistently used terror as a weapon and is deeply influenced by other countries’.

As the rest of the world makes one of its periodic moral flyovers to scrutinise the latest round of bloodshed in the Middle East — and none can doubt the terrible human cost of the Israeli assault on Gaza — it is as well to recall the sequence of events that led to the air-strikes. Hamas (which controls the Gaza Strip that Israel quit in August 2005) and Israel had been observing a nervous six-month ceasefire brokered by the Egyptians. Israel offered a resumption of trade with Gaza if the violence ceased completely. It did not. Even at its lowest level, 15 to 20 rockets were still raining down on Israel each month. Hamas also abused the cessation of violence to re-arm itself via the underground tunnels that run from Gaza into Egypt. The Islamist terror group then announced the end of the ceasefire, claiming that Israel’s refusal to resume trade was a demonstration of its bad faith. On Wednesday, 70 rockets were fired on Israel. Three days later, Israel began its assault on Gaza.

Let us be clear: Hamas chose, and chooses, violent confrontation. In this context it is notable that both Egypt and Fatah have laid the blame for the bombardment of the past few days squarely at its door. Of course, the conflict is asymmetric, in the sense that the Qassam rockets deployed by Hamas are not as sophisticated as Israel’s modern ordinance. But proportionality does not require Israel to lower itself to Hamas’s technological level. Proportionality required restraint from Israel until restraint was no longer rational: that point was passed last week, if not before.

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Barbara Abraham

January 1st, 2009 12:05pm Report this comment

At last some understanding from the British press to the heart-rending difficulties faced by our adminsitration. But 60 years on Israel still has to fight for a peaceful existance. We never started the wars but we certainly have a right to protect our people. War brings nothing but suffering and certainly funds should be spent on making life move forward, bringing literacy and economic stability, making the desert bloom and many more important things than hatred and killing. Visiting Israel our Christian friends are impressed - and indeed amazed by the progress made in every sector. This is a modern and democratic state with much to be proud of so why can this lesson not be learnt by our neighbors?

Geoff Cass

January 7th, 2009 10:32pm Report this comment

After all these years, it is good that the UK has at last woken up to the dire straights Israel faces. And the terrible threat that Hamas, backed by Syria and Iran, presents not just to Isrtael, but to the rest of the Western world too.

Elizabeth Allen

January 8th, 2009 2:59pm Report this comment

Great article.

With the unimaginably vast amounts of money and land in the wider Arabic empire the Palestinians could have been settled in great comfort and luxury long before now, and be in peace and harmony with Israel. The Arabic world does not care about Palestinians, but is keeping them poor and hateful, and using them as pawns in their racist, propagandist bid to wipe tiny Israel from the face of the earth. It is also trying hard to hoodwink the West's idle liberal-left into buying into its racist right wing agenda.

Israel is a tiny piece of land, roughly the area of Wales, within a huge swathe of Arab land of gargantuan continental proportions. Given the ongoing daily threat to Israel, no wonder they have the defence force that they do. The Israeli Defence Force has the hardest job of any country anywhere in the world, therefore, such sophisticated and robust military means are entirely proportionate to the threat Israel faces every day.

Neil Fiertel

January 11th, 2009 10:47pm Report this comment

This is a perfect article, concise and totally accurate in my mind. Too bad the morons on the street, the hand wringers and naive fools that think of the fanatical Hamas as the average Palestinian are getting press coverage rather than the real facts about what caused this sad situation. As you so well stated, if the IRA had rained rockets on Britain, just exactly what would have happened?...Just so.

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