Shalon and Assalamu Aleikum,
As I am sitting in my relatively safe apartment in Jerusalem, nearly one million Israelis are sitting in bomb shelters across northern Israel, not knowing where the next Katyusha will land. For the last two and a half weeks, since the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers which resulted in a well calculated Israeli response, thousands of Katyusha missiles have been launched into Israel by the fundamentalist Islamic Shiite terror organization, the Hezbollah. Israeli children, both Arabs and Jews, have been living in constant fear. Entire families have been forced to pack their belongings and move south. Women were forced to give birth while missiles fall only a stone-throw from the hospital.
The photos from Lebanon are naturally terrible. In the last Israeli attack of Kfar Qana, approximately forty Lebanese children were killed. Who likes to see children get killed? Who likes war? Who likes seeing bodies on their TV screen? But in this entire war, more important questions have been deliberately forgotten by Europeans and by liberal Americans. Why has the Hezbollah been using the local population as human shields for the last six years? Why has the Hezbollah been shooting into Israel from people’s private homes and not from a “military base?” Why has the Hezbollah prohibited people from leaving their homes once Israel warned each and every Lebanese citizen that they must leave if they were to avoid being hit? Why have the Hezbollah stored their weapons in Christian and Sunni Muslim neighborhoods; in churches and in schools? Why has Resolution 1559, calling for the immediate disarmament of all military parties in Southern Lebanon, including the Hezbollah, never implemented?
Images taken by international media clearly show that the Hezbollah was using this specific building [where civilians were hiding] as a base from which Katyushas were launched into Haifa, Carmiel, Naharia and a dozen more Israeli cities, killing Israeli civilians nearly every day. Europeans and liberal Americans can continue yelling, “Murder! Murder!” as long as they want and blaming Israel for each and every catastrophe in the Middle East. But the simple (one would think!) fact is that Israel is doing what any other country would do in a similar situation –it is doing everything necessary to defend its citizens. The Hezbollah have used Lebanon for the last two and a half decades as a base for their terrorist activities. They have kidnapped Lebanon and have been raping it, literally. They have transformed a beautiful country known as the “Switzerland of the Middle East” into piles of rubble. They continued doing so, and firing missiles into Israel, even after Israel left Lebanon in 2000 after being there since 1982.
I left the USA after attending college and returned back home to Israel. Being back here has been en eye-opener in many ways. It is obvious to me that Israel can’t stop the fighting against the Hezbollah until the hypocritical, shameless UN decides to send international forces to replace the murderous Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. When Hezbollah will decide to stop and the UN to act, Israel will also stop. But until then, the Israeli government will continue, must continue, doing what every European country and the US would do –sending the message to Israelis that unlike Lebanese citizens, they are being protected and taken care of.
Smadar BAKOVIC
Jerusalem, Israel
As I am sitting in my relatively safe apartment in Jerusalem, nearly one million Israelis are sitting in bomb shelters across northern Israel, not knowing where the next Katyusha will land. For the last two and a half weeks, since the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers which resulted in a well calculated Israeli response, thousands of Katyusha missiles have been launched into Israel by the fundamentalist Islamic Shiite terror organization, the Hezbollah. Israeli children, both Arabs and Jews, have been living in constant fear. Entire families have been forced to pack their belongings and move south. Women were forced to give birth while missiles fall only a stone-throw from the hospital.
The photos from Lebanon are naturally terrible. In the last Israeli attack of Kfar Qana, approximately forty Lebanese children were killed. Who likes to see children get killed? Who likes war? Who likes seeing bodies on their TV screen? But in this entire war, more important questions have been deliberately forgotten by Europeans and by liberal Americans. Why has the Hezbollah been using the local population as human shields for the last six years? Why has the Hezbollah been shooting into Israel from people’s private homes and not from a “military base?” Why has the Hezbollah prohibited people from leaving their homes once Israel warned each and every Lebanese citizen that they must leave if they were to avoid being hit? Why have the Hezbollah stored their weapons in Christian and Sunni Muslim neighborhoods; in churches and in schools? Why has Resolution 1559, calling for the immediate disarmament of all military parties in Southern Lebanon, including the Hezbollah, never implemented?
Images taken by international media clearly show that the Hezbollah was using this specific building [where civilians were hiding] as a base from which Katyushas were launched into Haifa, Carmiel, Naharia and a dozen more Israeli cities, killing Israeli civilians nearly every day. Europeans and liberal Americans can continue yelling, “Murder! Murder!” as long as they want and blaming Israel for each and every catastrophe in the Middle East. But the simple (one would think!) fact is that Israel is doing what any other country would do in a similar situation –it is doing everything necessary to defend its citizens. The Hezbollah have used Lebanon for the last two and a half decades as a base for their terrorist activities. They have kidnapped Lebanon and have been raping it, literally. They have transformed a beautiful country known as the “Switzerland of the Middle East” into piles of rubble. They continued doing so, and firing missiles into Israel, even after Israel left Lebanon in 2000 after being there since 1982.
I left the USA after attending college and returned back home to Israel. Being back here has been en eye-opener in many ways. It is obvious to me that Israel can’t stop the fighting against the Hezbollah until the hypocritical, shameless UN decides to send international forces to replace the murderous Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. When Hezbollah will decide to stop and the UN to act, Israel will also stop. But until then, the Israeli government will continue, must continue, doing what every European country and the US would do –sending the message to Israelis that unlike Lebanese citizens, they are being protected and taken care of.
Smadar BAKOVIC
Jerusalem, Israel
posted by Annette at 2:24 AM
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