Opinion
This week a hail of rockets and mortars rained down on Israel – where is Britain's outrage?
Arsen Ostrovsky slams Britain and the global community for the "deafening silence" on this week's rockets from Gaza
June 20, 2018 09:57
2 min read
Arsen Ostrovsky slams Britain and the global community for the "deafening silence" on this week's rockets from Gaza
June 20, 2018 09:57Early on Wednesday, as most people in the UK were comfortably sleeping, people in the south of Israel were running for cover from a hail of rockets and mortars being rained down by Palestinian Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
In the space of several hours during the night, over 45 rockets and mortars were fired on civilian communities in Israel. One even hit a kindergarten; thankfully, it was empty at the time.
Although there were no fatalities or serious injuries, that has more to do with Israel having invested millions of dollars in bomb shelters and the Iron Dome defence system.
Meanwhile Hamas, which is recognised as a terrorist organisation both by the EU and UK, continues to invest millions of dollars in foreign aid into more rockets and tunnels.
To all those accusing Israel of "excessive force": imagine if even one rocket was fired on London, or Paris, Brussels or Berlin, and they had only 15 seconds to find shelter?
You are guaranteed there would be universal outrage, condemnation and an immediate, forceful response.
Yet after 45 rockets and mortars were fired on Israel in the middle of night, what was the response from the UK and international community?
Silence. Deafening silence.
One may perhaps understand Jeremy Corbyn’s reluctance to condemn the rocket attacks – after all, he does consider Hamas to be his "friends" –but where is Theresa May’s government, which have been staunch allies of the Jewish state and who just recently hosted the Prime Minister of Israel in London?
Where is the outrage from the United Nations, where the General Assembly only last week held a "Special Emergency Session" to overwhelmingly condemn Israel for "excessive force" for defending itself from the unprecedented violence emanating from Gaza, yet gave Hamas a free pass?
Again silence.
Terror attacks like Tuesday night do not occur in a vacuum. They are the direct result of such obscene one-sided resolutions that single out and condemn only Israel, yet wholly ignore Hamas.
By refusing to hold Hamas to account, the international community is only emboldening, empowering and inciting the terror group to commit further attacks.
Meanwhile, one may also be forgiven for asking where the EU’s outrage is, given it is generally quick to slam Israel over settlement building. They are yet to say a word about the Palestinian rockets.
Just silence. Not a single European leader has condemned the Gaza rocket attacks.
Where are NGOs which proclaim to champion human rights, like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, and which do not waste a single opportunity to condemn Israel for purported human rights violations against the Palestinians? Are the human rights of Israelis no less equally important?
Where are the front page stories from the mainstream media, which have either buried the story between the weather and crossword pages, or omitted to mention it altogether?
Where is the outage that Iran, which continues to call for the destruction of the State of Israel, is the primary funder and supplier of arms to Hamas?
And where is the outrage from all those claiming what we have witnessed in Gaza over the past two months have been "peaceful protests"?
Ask yourself this: does a "peaceful protestor" fire 45 rockets and mortars against a civilian population in the middle of the night, including at a kindergarten?
Israel, like every sovereign nation, is entitled to take whatever action necessary to defend its citizens.
However, until the international community starts taking Palestinian terror seriously and begins to hold groups like Hamas to account, they will be complicit in every rocket attack and mortar fired at the Jewish state.
Arsen Ostrovsky is an Israeli-based International Human Rights lawyer and Middle East Analyst.
