Enablers
In the bizarro world of pro-Palestinian activism, black is white, up is down, and rejecting a ceasefire is actually accepting it. That’s the conclusion to be drawn from an Israeli blogger who suggests why Hamas could not have been expected to accept the ceasefire terms brokered by Egypt. “Israel strikes Gaza from time to time and kills Palestinian civilians there and in the West Bank without garnering much scrutiny from the international media and, by extension, the international community,” she writes. “Returning to the status quo would also mean an end to the immediate damage to Israel’s image caused by the horrific photos and footage coming out of Gaza, and global protests against what Israel calls ‘Operation Protective Edge.’”
Did you get that? The international media usually ignore Israeli military operations against Palestinians, and Hamas can’t be expected to give up its most valuable propaganda tool: dead civilians.
It is an unintentionally revealing statement of Hamas intentions, but not an atypical one. Too often in the commentary and coverage of Israel’s efforts to silence Hamas rockets, Israel’s actions are seen as “assaults” without provocation. And apologists for Hamas can’t seem to bring themselves to condemn the despicable practice of using civilians as human shields and their property as hiding places for weapons and militants.
There are some signs that Israel’s message in this regard has gotten a fairer hearing this time than in the past. Hamas has certainly helped, by continuing to lob enough missiles into Israel that even journalists with pro-Palestinian leanings are baffled by their intentions and appalled by their callousness.
In the same blog, the writer asserts that “the bogus ‘ceasefire’ initiative gives Israel the opportunity to spin headlines in its direction — claiming that Hamas are being irrational and unreasonable ‘terrorists.’” It’s sad that an Israeli blogger could be capable of such a moral inversion — not just sad for Israel, but sad for the Palestinians as well. Had their supporters in the West been honest with them from the beginning — instead of encouraging their unrealizable dreams and justifying terrorism — an independent Palestinian state would have come into being years ago.
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