The Media and the Ceasefire

All too few journalists have written articles in support of Israel's war effort against Hamas.

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The reprehensible thing is that those journalists who have are considered brave for writing common sense opinions and factual pieces about the conflict here. Sadly, 'public opinion' has been biased by the media for years to portray the 'poor suffering Palestinian' against the 'mighty and brutal Israelis'. This has now become perceived truth when actually it is absolutely wrong. If the Palestinians have suffered it has been due to their bad and brutal leadership, from Arafat to Islamic Jihad to Hamas. Somewhere, lost in the mix, is the fact that the majority of people in Gaza voted for a radical Islamic regime avowed to wipe out the Jewish state. And this was after Israel forcefully evicted Jewish settlers from their beautiful homes, agricultural developments, small industries, based in the Gaza Strip, and turned them over to the Palestinians as a gesture of peace, a brighter future, and in the expectation that this sacrifice and unilateral withdrawal would create the embryo of a new state for the Palestinians of Gaza. Instead, Israel got a mini-Iran on our doorstep, led by a lethal Islamic terror organisation, bent on the elimination of the Jewish state. The Strip became training bases and launch pads that resulted in eight years of rocket and mortar fire into Israel, as well a terror attacks, one of which resulted in the hostage taking of Gilad Shalit two years ago. The industrial facilities we left them became the rocket manufacturing plants that killed or injured us. They raise their kids with a hatred that will continue into the next generation of terrorist and suicide bomber. Yet, the world condemn us when we say 'enough is enough'. Israel stands fully behind our soldiers. Should the fighting enter Gaza city it would be a terrible battle , but the vast majority of Israelis want to see a fight that results in total victory over Hamas, not another draw imposed by the EU or the UN. You cannot draw with Al Qaida. You either win or you lose. The same applies to a war against Hamas. Some say you can't win against an ideology like Hamas. However, physically degrading the political and military ability of Hamas to function, and replacing it with the more moderate and elected Palestinian Authority, backed by EU and US forces and under their supervision, would herald the approach of a permanent peace agreement that Israel, the Palestinians, and the world would love to see. If Israel is forced to agree to a ceasefire and withdraw its troops from Gaza, before eliminating the hardcore Hamas leaders and fighters who are bunkered down under schools and hospitals in Gaza city, the world will soon be treated to scenes of victorious jubilation staged by a resurgent Hamas at mass rallies through the Gaza Strip. The perception then will be that Hamas won and Israel lost yet another war against Islamic terror (deja vous Hizbollah), despite the destruction of their stockpiles and the loss of hundreds of their terrorists. This will further reduce the deterrent capability of Israel, and embolden our enemies to retrain, restock, regroup, with even deadlier weapons for a future vengeful war against us. It will also be the death-knell of any hope for a feasible peace agreement, as Hamas will never put aside their Charter and Islamic determination to remove 'the stain of Israel' from the Middle East map. This conclusion is being imposed on us because Hamas thrust the faces of dead babies in front of Western camera. I have yet to see Western journalists embedded with Al Qaida or with the Taliban reporting on the killing of innocent cvilians and children by coalition forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Instead, the British and US soldiers are portrayed as brave fighting men and women fighting a just war. The war scenes are deliberated kept sterile. They always show soldiers firing at some distant enemy, or patrolling streets and conversing with the locals. Against Israel they show a different perspective. The media has been suckered into accepting the exploitation of dead children by Hamas while shunting aside the exploitation of live children, used by Hamas as human shields. The death toll of civilians, on either side, is tragic. The media would have us believe that this was avoidable had Israel not asserted its rights to defend its citizens. What would they have us do? Walk into Gaza city with an arrest warrant? It is the Hamas exploitation of children is a crime against humanity, not Israel's war against the terror regime that controls the Gaza Strip. Yet the media refuse to confront this issue fairly. Instead their growing criticism, backed by the pictures coming out of Gaza, are forcing diplomats to stop a just war against Islamic terrorism. The initial result will be that Hamas will emerge from their undergound bunkers and claim victory. The end result will be that Israel, the Palestinians, and the world, will nervously nervously wait for the next round in an ongoing conflict that could have been prevented had the diplomats and the media stood firmly behind a democratic nations' brave determination to remove 'netre@matav.net.il' from our region, and the world. Barry Shaw netre@matav.net.il