By N Oji Mzilikazi
26 July 2014 updated August 18, 2014
The adage, “If you play with fire, you could get burn,” is totally apropos to the Israeli Gaza offensive.
Hamas intimately know that aggression against Israel is going to be met with swift and deadly retribution. Yet, unless it is tact to morally shame Israel in the eyes of the world, knowing that the military heavy-handedness by Israel Defence Force(IDF), always results in high numbers of Palestinian civilian deaths including children, and millions in damage to property, Hamas persists in the futile act of firing rockets into Israel, given Israel’s early-warning and Iron Dome defense systems.
Hamas has yet to understand that terrorists acts and/or waging war against Israel is lose-lose proposition.
Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, the 23-day bombardment of Gaza in 2008-2009, resulted in over 1,400 Palestinians killed, over 300 of them children, over 5,300 injured, over 1,600 of them children and approximately 20, 000 homes completely or partially destroyed, and 36 UN schools damaged.
More importantly, Hamas has yet to understand that Israel can never be morally shamed. The cliché, “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East,” along with the invocation of the Holocaust and charges of anti-Semitism as cards of trump ensure that Israeli “excesses” and wrongs are excused, and muted to no criticism of Israel come from her “friends.”
Thus we see many powerful governments holding the “Israel can do no wrong” position, and their ministers, politicians, and prominent persons in their society acting as de facto Israeli agents…