This is very bad news. The world will watch in mounting dismay at the very real suffering among the people of Gaza, who are, whatever their faults, human beings whose plight as ready targets in an area from which escape or safe shelter is impossible, ranks among one of the most upsetting in the long sorry history of human conflict.
Strategically this is already a defeat for Israel. Before the conflict Hamas was on its uppers; now it is once again on the up. The sheer wanton brutality of a military campaign which batters residential areas in which the majority of the dead and injured have to be women and children, even if a few fighters are also blasted, violates the very principles of civilised behaviour which the Israeli State was founded to champion. This unequal contest of arms shocks Jews the world over as much as everybody else.
The excuses and explanations of the Netanyahu government are insupportable. Of course Hamas will fire rockets because the people of Gaza are held blockaded in a mass prison, lacking the facilities, means, and money for a normal life and the economy to make any progress. Israel has made a virtue of being repressive to the Palestinians so that no realistic prospects exist for a just peace. To this is added a bloodthirsty lust for excessive military force which is truly shocking.
If Israel wanted to be proportionate it could neutralize the Hamas rockets with its iron dome, and blow up the tunnels from within its own border with the fighters in them if necessary. Instead a murderous bombardment of civilians has done enormous damage to Israel’s credibility worldwide. If the people of Israel want to have any kind of future free from never ending wars and uncertainty, they need to elect themselves a different kind of government which understands better the values their country was inaugurated to enshrine.
