The Onslaught
There are those - and they are legion - who contend that Israel's response to Hamas's provocative invitations to war extend beyond a reasonable response. Proportionality is the key word. There have not been, those critics contend, sufficient identifiable victims of Hamas aggression against Israel to account for Israel's reaction. Not, it is true, because Hamas hasn't tried hard enough. The thousands of rockets that it has launched against Israeli border towns have had their effect.Not quite directly in instant deaths, but living deaths. Producing severe existential trauma in thousands of people. Particularly children, who have no defences against the continually-visited living, daily nightmares of rockets raining down on their communities, their schools, hospitals, nurseries, and homes. Where the population has had to resort to building cramped little protective areas for shelter from the bombs.
Where the community's sensibilities are assailed on a daily basis by the alert of air-raid sirens, jerking them to instant awareness. That they have, depending upon the town, whether Sderot or Ashkelon, either 15 or 30 seconds respectively, to respond with desperate alacrity. Drop whatever it is they are doing, and gather children and run to the closest shelter.
Perhaps not once a day; occasionally twice, three times. Can anyone imagine living under such conditions of existence throughout the course of years, with no cessation? With conditions reaching such a critical impasse that parents fear sending their children off to school, and where mothers fear going out to do a normal food shopping expedition?
These are shattered communities, with a huge percentage of their children severely traumatized. Community activities have come to a stand-still. Children are sent away to other parts of the country, for temporary relief from the ongoing bombardments. Businesses and small shop owners face ruination, with no income. Schools and colleges are closed, as well as shopping malls.
Nowhere is safe. Certainly not driving in a car, with one eye on the traffic, the other on the sky. Never forgetting that should a Grad rocket hit, it will impact badly, and do dreadful damage. They are packed with nails and ball-bearings, to ensure that they exact maximum damage on impact. Hamas, in launching those deadly missiles, hopes for maximum damage.
There is no normalcy, there is no surcease in a peaceful night's rest. Nightmare is an ongoing condition of awareness, of daily suspense and apprehension, not only the night-time events of a fearful sub-consciousness. The tens of thousands of people, men, women and children, who live in those towns are the front-line victims. They represent those whose lives have been irremediably altered.
And Hamas fighters have been very busy of late, launching rockets, trying to ambush Israeli soldiers, and if they're cornered, suddenly vanishing into the landscape, into tunnels, and bunkers now that air strikes are ongoing from Israel into Gaza. Hamas militia disguise themselves in civilian dress in urban areas. And while the IDF says it has dispatched 300 Hamas militia members, Hamas claims to have lost no more than 60.
They appear to be oddly demoralized, however. After all, the foot soldiers are the ones on the front lines, facing an angered enemy. Hamas leaders have discreetly fashioned for themselves the wherewithal to endure the onslaught; they are sheltered in places where they cannot be hit by enemy fire. "We're waiting for the Israelis to advance toward our strongholds, then we'll fight. Hamas's power has not been harmed", boasts a Hamas official.
And while Hamas militia continue to elude frontal engagement with Israeli forces, they are busy on other fronts. Controlling Fatah sympathizers, placing them under arrest, or shooting them in their legs to put them out of practical commission. And of course also identifying those few Gazans whom Hamas claims to have been in contact with the enemy, dispatching them summarily, as traitors.
The top officials of Hamas? Underground. Its brave and resourceful leader pronounces authoritatively, defiantly, triumphantly from Syria. And a spokesman for UNRWA in Gaza tells Israeli radio "I think Hamas feels that if they accept a cease-fire now, this will be an even greater defeat than the military defeat."
The plight of ordinary Gazans, the civilians, the men, the women and children? Pity the people of Gaza. Collateral damage that is acceptable, in honourable sacrifice for the larger cause. The larger cause? Restoration of Arab honour, so dreadfully impacted upon by the creation of the State of Israel. Insufferable.
Resistance is, and will remain the first order of business. The second order of business is simply to endure. This basic formula must be repeated ad infinitum. Success will be realized with the final withdrawal of one's enemy. Resulting in the restoration of land sacred to Islam. And with that, honour achieved.
Thus, the response.
posted by Pieface @ Monday, January 12, 2009
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