Hugh Ferrin

Mx. Andrews, allow me to explain what happened in Gaza, to shed a little clarity on the picture you have posted. What happened in this photograph is that Israel finally acted as the adult in the room and STOPPED LETTING GAZA HAPPEN. You see, Gaza has been happening for a long time, and about three years ago, it decided to make sure everyone in the world understood what it was about. Most people got the story backwards, maybe especially over there in your Eurozone. Gazans, under the leadership of Hamas over the last twenty years or so, and Fatah before that, have been slowly turning their entire city into a war crime. You see, it is a war crime to transform civilian installations into military outposts, including weapons depots, stations for launching rockets (at innocent civilians, no less), command centers, entrances to terror tunnels that could be used to launch military campaigns (against innocent civilians) and hide hostages in horrific conditions, and the like. Under the direction of openly militant terrorist organizations, they have been busy transforming their own infrastructure, including much purchased with direct humanitarian aid provided both by Israel and many Western nations, into munitions and functioning dual-purpose military and civilian structures. Again, they did this more or less to their entire city, including residential areas and buildings, schools, hospitals, and even houses of worship, and not just their own. Of course, they did this with tremendous public support from the Gazans, but given the circumstances on both sides of the equation, it's almost impossible to tell how much of that support was the result of the hideous and murderous ideology (read their charter, or lots of other things!) and how much is the result of terroristic coercion on the part of the terrorist militants running the place, who kill their own people for a variety of reasons including ensuring their support (and also just to make propaganda to falsely condemn Israel and the West). For decades, the world, including your Eurozone, but also Israel and my United States, patiently tried to find a workable solution to this problem. Israel tried a lot of things, including withdrawing from Gaza entirely on their own at great inconvenience and not just (almost endless, almost!) patience and aid but also opening up opportunities for Gazans to work in Israel, offering again and again for there to be a stable two-state solution (ask Bill Clinton about this!), and generally believing that if they were generous enough with the Gazans and gave them enough opportunities, they might come around to making it work. The Gazans, under the direction of Hamas, repaid the world and especially Israel for this kindness, help, and patience by meticulously planning a day of violence beyond human comprehension in its horror, which we know about partly because they gleefully recorded and streamed it themselves while they committed unbelievably heinous acts not against an opposing army under instigated hostilities but against innocent civilians, who they did unspeakable things to while dragging both the living and desecrated bodies of the dead back into their hidden terror tunnels to hold as collateral against Israel, knowing how much the Israelis and Jews in general value life. It was found to be the case that the reason the horrors of 7 October, 2023, were as successful as they were, from Hamas's perspective, is because the Gazans and Hamas were using the opportunities they were granted in the hopes of increasing peace and cohabitation--opportunities for things like jobs as housekeepers, gardeners, taxi drivers, and such, there in the Gaza Envelope in Israel--that these generous opportunities given in good faith were used as opportunities to gather the necessary intelligence for this heinous, terrible operation to have succeeded. That is, what Israelis offered Gazans in good faith was taken not just in bad faith but in the worst possible faith, literally murderous (and that's not even the worst part, as you can go watch for yourself anytime you like as an MEP or even just as a human being with an internet connection). So, what had been happening in Gaza was a steady planning and then execution of something that deserves to be placed among the most grotesque and unconscionable set of coordinated activities in the history of war crimes, at least in the last century. What was happening in Gaza was that Hamas and the Gazans who support them, which is close to all of them, were systematically turning their entire city into a war crime while launching war crimes at innocent Israelis for years and then committing one of the most barbaric things to have happened in living memory all against innocent Jews, not military combatants, many of whom were ardent supporters of a peaceful co-existence with the Gazans that was simply impossible, based wholly on hippie-dippy wishful thinking and striking Leftist naivete. The photograph you have shared below is one image of Israel putting a stop to that, God be praised. May we all thank Israel for the effort and sacrifice, and may the honorable memories of those who made the ultimate sacrifice be a blessing to the world, even to you and your ungrateful Irish. While the picture below looks like terrible devastation, there are a couple of things to say about it that demand witness. First, it is devastation exactly in proportion to the war crimes of the Gazans and Hamas, specifically in turning civilian infrastructure into military infrastructure across more or less their entire city. They did this as a defensive tool, deliberately trying to invalidate military targets by hiding them within civilian buildings even while they initiated hostilities that demanded neutralization. They did this on purpose. Deliberately. As a strategy. Part of that strategy is where you come in, Mx. Andrews. It is the strategy of war propaganda, which Palestinians have mastered since they have proven for a century that they're not up to the task of actual warfare. They were good at it to begin with and honed the techniques through much Soviet tutoring, and now they have turned even a Mx. of your high standing into one of their lowly useful idiots. I'm sure you're at least a little embarrassed, right? At least you're not alone, I guess. You have a lot of very bad company here. Second, what you see here is the most minimal response possible that Israel could have made. They took extraordinary pains, all well documented, to minimize civilian casualties and all other forms of collateral damage, often suffering casualties of their own in the effort, so what you see here can be most assuredly understood to be the minimum necessary response to neutralize military installations in a hostile territory that declared war through a surprise attack on civilians at 6:30 am on the sabbath on a holiday. I'm not sure you understand the gravity of this point, Mx. Andrews, so let me elaborate upon it. Israelis shed their blood and paid with their own worthy sons and daughters, may their memories ever be a blessing to this world, in order to minimize collateral damage in Gaza, even after 7 October, even after decades of relentless but niggling (by comparison) hostilities that took their own year after year, even after the Gazans themselves rejected every single bid for true peace while the Israelis did not. Let me reiterate: good Israeli men and women not only went above and beyond to risk their lives but also sustained casualties, including the deaths of many, to minimize the death and damages to Gaza such that only valid military targets would be struck. The result is as you see. Gaza is in bad shape because Hamas and the Gazans arranged that to be a minimum necessity, and Israel left it the way it is now specifically as a result of achieving the lowest collateral damage rate of any in the entire history of urban warfare. That is, Israel paid with its own blood to minimize the deaths of innocents, even among these heinous enemies and under these unbelievable conditions. Meanwhile, Israel did this while receiving not the support or even the blind eye of the world but its scorn. Surely you've seen. Hell, Mx. Andrews, you appear to be participating, and shame on you for that, shame everlasting wouldn't be enough. So on top of these injuries, Israel has borne great insult for its responsibility, morality, and endless honoring of human life, slandered and accused around the world, even by important "statesmxn" like yourself and most of your wretched colleagues, both at home in Ireland and across the EU, never mind the United Nations. Rather than showing the most basic human decency in this situation, though, you have decided to continue to heap scorn and insinuation upon people who not only do not deserve it but who deserve your support, your honor, and your thanks, not that you can conceive of it. They don't even need your support, honor, or thanks, though, and aren't even asking. They don't even want you to think better or shut up. They'd just appreciate it if you did. They are your moral betters in every possible and conceivable way, and you bring shame upon yourself, your family, your country, and all of Europe. I doubt they'll tell you that, but I wanted you to know, from the very bottom of my American heart. To close up, you simply don't understand what you see here. The picture you shared is the result of Israel finally doing what needed to be done for decade: stopping what was happening in Gaza, which was the slow transformation of an entire city into a terrorist-ridden heap of war crimes. The sight is ugly, but it was an ugly necessity, and the world is a far better place now that it has happened. It's a shame about your inverted worldview and broken priorities, though, I must say.