How does a country facing a "humanitarian crisis" accumulate an enormous arsenal of arms and build such a sophisticated network of tunnels to start and wage a war with Israel?
By Harris Zvi Green
January 26, 2024
My dearest friends,
This past week has been a particularly difficult one. Twenty-four young soldiers were killed in the space of twenty-four hours. Twenty-four more people died without a single wrinkle on their faces. Twenty-four more families whose lives will never be the same. How many more soldiers do we have to sacrifice so we can live in peace and security?
Deadly Week. The faces of 21 soldiers killed as buildings collapse in blast in the central Gaza Strip on January 22, 2024: (Photo: IDF)
This terrible tragedy begs the question as to why Israel has elected to conduct her war against terror by using vulnerable foot-soldiers rather than less precise weapons to eliminate the militants and destroy their military infrastructure. Apparently, the rules of warfare require this. The bottom line is that an unnecessarily higher number of our soldiers are having to die in order to limit the number of civilian casualties in Gaza. Does that make sense to you?
A poll conducted in Gaza in 2014, revealed that more than 80% of Gazans supported firing of missiles into Israel. As an Israeli, I need to be more circumspect. If I advocate the elimination of terrorists and those who actively support them, my country can be found guilty of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Why is it that seventy-five years after achieving recognition as a member state of the United Nations, Israel still has to fight for the right to defend herself? It's the responsibility of the United Nations to protect its member states and to condemn and prevent acts of terror against them. Unfortunately, the United Nations has abandoned principle in favor of politics.
At a meeting of the UN Security Council, Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, stated that Israel's rejection of the Two-State solution is "unacceptable". He claims it will only "embolden extremists" and "indefinitely prolong the conflict".
But the reality is that until October 6, 2023, Gaza was essentially a self-governing entity administered by Hamas. Effectively, a Three State solution has been in place for the past 16 years. Where did this get us?
In this period, tens of thousands of rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. Gaza matured into another lethal tentacle in Iran's plan to destroy Israel. The Hamas administration, financed through UNRWA, systematically brainwashed and indoctrinated Gaza's population to fulfill its military and Jihadi objectives. The UN is, wittingly or unwittingly, complicit in building and maintaining the Hamas terror machine.
UNWRA School. Are these schoolkids of 2013 the killers of 2023.
The notion that an immediate ceasefire and implementation of a Two-State solution will bring peace and tranquility to the region is without foundation.
An even more significant fact is that the Palestinians don't want a Two State solution. Those Palestinians who agree to a Two State solution, contemplate this as an interim solution rather than a permanent one. They refuse to acknowledge that a Two State solution represents an end to the conflict. The Palestinians have no real desire for a state of their own. Their objective is to deny the Jews a Nation State in the historical Land of Israel.
A Two-State solution at this time will further embolden Hamas and Iran's other proxies in the Middle East. How exactly will a Palestinian State in Gaza, Judea and Samaria controlled by Hamas with military support from Iran and Russia, bring peace and tranquility to the region? Does Guterres and his UN Ragtime band think we're stupid?
Guterres claims the population of Gaza is being subjected to destruction on an unprecedented scale. I certainly don't envy the people of Gaza, but Guterres needs to look elsewhere. Hamas has embedded its military infrastructure in a network of reinforced concrete tunnels with access points from hospitals, schools, mosques and other public buildings using women and children as human shields. This military infrastructure is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
Guterres claims that half a million people in Gaza face hunger, yet he fails to address the question as to how a country, in the throes of a humanitarian crisis, is able to accumulate such an impressive arsenal of arms and build such a sophisticated network of tunnels to manufacture, operate and protect its military infrastructure.
At the school I attended, I was taught that problems are most efficiently solved by correcting their root cause. Guterres and I obviously attended different schools.
Insight on Incitement. A report in 2023 by two independent research and monitoring groups revealed that teachers at UNWRA schools in Gaza regularly call to "murder Jews, and create teaching materials that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis and incite antisemitism." Succumbing to terror will not bring peace to the region.
Guterres self-image with his paymasters in Iran and Qatar is so important to him that he elected to take a rain-check on this year's annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day memorial service at a synagogue that had invited him for years. His explanation was "because it would be centered on survivors, as well as the pain of the Jewish community as it contends with antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war". What he neglected to explain was that this year he had not been invited - the first time since taking office in 2018 - because of his antisemitic comment that the October 7 massacre "did not happen in a vacuum." Guterres seemed to prefer a public explanation that his non-attendance was his decision and not that of the synagogue.
Unfortunately, our problems don't end at the UN.
The slogan "Bring Back Our Girls" was born in 2014 following the kidnapping of 276 Christian schoolgirls in Nigeria by the Islamic Boko Haram terror group. Michelle Obama and Julia Roberts were amongst the trendy celebrities who waved posters in protest. But where are the protests against the acts of sexual depravity being perpetrated against the Israelis held hostage in Gaza? I can only conclude that Julia Roberts isn't such a pretty woman after all.
Weren't the six million Jews so brutally murdered in World War II enough for the sadist racists? How, less than eighty years after the Holocaust, can Jews be assaulted on the streets of London? Ten distress calls made to the London Metropolitan Police went unanswered.
The charade at The Hague continues. The connection between Iran, South Africa and the ruling ANC party in South Africa is now in the headlines. Iran is the manipulator. The ANC is the benefactor while the South African government remains the useful idiot. So much for Nelson Mandela's legacy.
Charade at The Hague. Friends with the world's worst perpetrators of human rights, South Africa falsely accuses Israel at the Hague of genocide.
As you can see, it's been a really difficult and frustrating week.
My condolences to those mourning their nearest and dearest. My wishes to the injured for a complete and speedy recovery. May God protect our brave soldiers. May the hostages soon be reunited with their families.
Wishing you all Shabbat Shalom and better times ahead.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Harris Zvi Green.
About the writer:
Harris Zvi Green was born in Cape Town, South Africa. Aged 77, he made Aliyah 53 years ago. An accountant by profession, he served as the Chief Financial Officer for a number of Israel based hi-tech companies. He is married to Phyllis. They have 3 married children ,13 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. Harris Zvi Green is a founder member of Truth be Told, an organization engaged in public diplomacy on behalf of Israel.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
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