Common Folk Using Common Sense

Poor and oppressed Hamas has stated that they may begin attacking evil Israel once again.

“This is an open war launched against Hamas. All options are open, including martyrdom operations,” Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the organisation’s armed wing, said.

What has evil Israel done to provoke such a defensive response from Hamas?

Israeli planes launched air strikes against the militant Palestinian group in Gaza.

The three aerial attacks destroyed a Hamas compound, hit a car carrying two senior commanders and a trailer used by the Islamist group, killing three people and wounding scores of others.

Israel confirmed all three air strikes.

See, just as the UN, most of Europe, most of the world media and news organizations, and practically every Arab in the world have been telling us for years, Hamas is only acting in self-defense.

Except that the UN, most of Europe, most of the world media and news organizations, and practically every Arab in the world always seem to leave out a small detail of what’s really been going on over there. You see, the reason Israel launched air strikes against the militant Palestinian group in Gaza was:

A high school in the Negev was directly hit by a Qassam rocket Thursday. Two people were lightly wounded in the attack, and several others suffered from shock.

Earlier Thursday, three Qassam rockets landed in Sderot. Another two rockets landed in open fields in the western Negev.

And those don’t even count the more than 50 rockets that have fallen on the Israeli town of Sderot in the last three days. All of the rockets came from Palestinian-controlled in Gaza, and all were fired by Palestinian terrorists.

“We have had enough. Israel will take all defensive measures to protect our citizens from these Hamas rockets,” Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said before the air strike.

An official statement released Wednesday following a security meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office said that “Israel will operate against Hamas’ Qassam launchers, their commanders and the terror perpetrators.”

Sderot is a city in the Southern District of Israel. Sderot lies a kilometer from the Gaza Strip. Since the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada in October 2000, the city has been frequently attacked by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants using homemade rockets known as “Qassam rockets”. Although they are very inaccurate, these attacks have resulted in a number of deaths and injuries as well as causing psychological distress among the residents. Hundreds of Qassam rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip since Israel removed all permanent Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the northern West Bank in September 2005.

That’s right: As an overture to peace Israel volunteered to remove all permanent Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the northern West Bank back in 2005. Hamas is showing their overture to peace by filling Gaza with crude rockets and bombarding Israeli civilian areas … including schools. And yet Hamas has the gall to call the Israeli defensive response to this bombardment “an open war launched against Hamas”?

And to make this painfully clear to those of you that were educated in America’s government schools, Israel’s defensive response was aimed as the rockets, the rocket launchers, and militant leaders. Hamas’ offensive response was aimed at innocent civilian areas. There is stark contrast in this conflict, and if you cannot see it for yourself then either you aren’t very bright or you’re just as anti-Israel as the Palestinians.

• On July 7, 2006, two Qassam rockets fired from Gaza hit the city. One of the Qassams fell in the city’s central market, wounding seven civilians. Three people were hit by shrapnel from the rocket, while four were in shock. The second rocket landed in an empty soccer field. Three of the wounded were evacuated to Barzilai Hospital.
• On November 15, 2006, Islamic Jihad and militants associated with Hamas fired fifteen Qassam rockets from Gaza into the Western Negev, eleven of which landed in Sderot, killing a 57-year old woman, Faina Sloutsker, and seriously wounding several people, among whom were a high school student.
• Recent research has found that one out of every three Sderot children suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Qassam rockets are fired into Israel from Gaza by Palestinian militants on almost a daily basis. If 89 rockets fell on your town in one month alone, and if around 300 rockets fell in your town since 2005, and if most of these rockets hit civilian population centers like schools, what would you expect your government to do? What would you expect your media to say?

Hamas, Israel, Palestinian, Gaza, Islam, Arab

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