FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE PEOPLE

I have been listening to various interviews with pundits, Israeli diplomats and spokespersons for the Israeli Government. Their impassioned plea is to try and impress people with the righteousness of their cause in protecting the Israeli people from the aggression and attacks coming out of Gaza, the Lebanon and Iran. They have been prosecuting aggressive defence since the disastrous attack of October 7^th last year by Hamas. Most western countries have acknowledged, through their leaders, that Israel is entitled to defend itself.

 

In the course of that defence they have acted with particularly brutal force without any concern, despite their claims, for those innocents who may be killed or injured in the process of protecting the Israeli people. They have lost sight of their humanity. Why do I say this?

 

Consider for a moment the events of the exploding pagers and mobile phones. The planning and execution of the, so called, security operation, must have taken months if not years to put into effect. Developing the pagers and phones, implanting the explosives, ensuring that they were purchased by the appropriate people, ensuring that they were distributed to the appropriate people and whatever else it might have taken to get the items into the appropriate hands. That involves careful and long term planning - let alone keeping it secret – for the sole purpose of causing death and injury. They did not care whether any innocents might be in possession of these death traps as they set them off without warning or care. It did not matter to them who might be killed or injured. If they did have a passing worry about the side effects, they clearly dismissed those thought in favour of protecting the Israeli people.  There can be no doubt about the intent of the exercise, kill and maim. Again, to put that intent into action must have taken some considerable time.

 

We also have the claim that the Israeli Defence Force have taken as much precaution as possible to ensure that civilians and innocentS are not injured by their actions, by warning them to move out of harm’s way, and indeed may have escorted some to move. Really, that’s a humane army in action? Please move out of the way so I can reduce your home and environment to rubble, thereby reducing you to homelessness, poverty and starvation, but you’ll be out of harm’s way. This is what is going on in Lebanon right now and has been going on in Gaza.

 

It is claimed all this is being done with the intention of fighting off  long-time aggressors for the protection of the Israeli people. The Iranians have now launched an aggressive strike on Israel provoking an almost gleeful response “They will pay the price”. The gung ho attitude is thick on the ground. You can be sure that whatever response is made, it will have been planned long ago in the bunkers of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, because that appears to be the only go to response of the Israeli government. They have for so long been playing the professional victim, that any victims who get in their way do not count. That is the poisonous persona that has for so long occupied their minds that they are way past protecting the people, but leading them further into yet more violence and retribution.  They know nothing else but to cry out for vengeance.

 

This is an attitude that seems to pervade the middle east. We are a continent of victims and there appears to be no let up from that position. When will they make an end?

 

If as much time, as has been spent on devising more devious methods of destruction, had been spent on planning peace and trade agreements then perhaps there might have been a very different picture. Frankly, the United States and Europe, long supporters of Israel, no longer know where to put themselves They are embarrassed at having to defend this out of control defence of a country that seems intent on dragging the world into its poisonous orbit, allegedly for the protection of the people. I am not suggesting that the terrorist aggressors are blameless in this endeavour, but the fault, in my view, rests now with people who really ought to know better, but are too blinded by vendetta and vengeance. For God’s sake end the cycle. Just stop the killing, it might just work.