In the Middle East, it’s good vs. evil
05/20/2021
In recent days, local friends and acquaintances have understandably reached out to me asking variations of the same question: what is going on in the Middle East? The conventional wisdom is that there is no easy answer. But there is: the free and democratic nation of Israel was attacked by the terrorist group Hamas, and Israel is engaged in an armed conflict against the terrorists in an effort to keep her people safe.
Despite this simple truth, Israel’s detractors have repeatedly sought to justify Hamas’s terrorist onslaught. Some cite a housing dispute in east Jerusalem – despite the fact that Palestinian human rights activists reject this. Others argue that Israel’s defensive military operations are at fault, as if it were possible to ignore and accept hundreds of rockets being fired at Israeli cities every day.
The truth is far simpler than the moral and intellectual acrobatics necessary to justify attempted murder on the basis of faith or nationality. And this reality is exemplified in events that took place earlier this week at the Erez and Kerem Shalom border crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
On Tuesday, in the midst of the current conflict with the theocratic and tyrannical rulers of the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sent convoys through these border crossings with humanitarian aid for the innocent Palestinians subjected to life under a terrorist regime. Israel was sending in fuel and medical equipment. Hamas attacked the conveys with mortars just as the trucks were passing through. A 19-year-old IDF soldier who was part of the humanitarian mission was wounded, and the border crossings were closed.
This stark moral contrast between Hamas and Israel is a constant in the conflict.
The IDF goes to great lengths to prevent Palestinian civilian casualties when it engages Israel’s terrorist foes. The IDF drops leaflets in areas that are soon to be struck, and even drops a small but loud device incapable of causing physical injuries on the roofs of buildings as a warning that a strike is coming so people will have a chance to leave. Yes, this enables terrorists to escape. But it protects innocent Palestinians, so for Israel, it is unquestionably worth it.
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