End the blockade of Gaza? So more of these will take place?

“End the blockade of Gaza,” demands Erdogan of Turkey. “End the blockade of Gaza,” echoed after him Philip Luther, the deputy director of Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa program. “End the blockade of Gaza,” the demand came in a form of expectation, following the long awaited release of Gilad Shalit.  

What blockade?

Thousands of truckloads of goods of all sorts enter the Gaza Strip each month: 4,983 this July, and 4,795 the previous month, and 5,087 in August, jest as examples. There is no blockade on civilian life in Gaza, only a military one. What do they think will happen if Israel removes this security blockade? The only one there is!

More of these will happen:

The death of 16 years old Daniel Viflic last April: After 10 days of struggle he died from wounds he received from an anti tank rocket that was fired from the Gaza Strip at his school bus.

Or the murder of the in-laws, the couples Moshe and Flora Gez, and Dov and Shulamit Karlinsky: On the 18 of August, by an anti-tank rocket fired at their private car, on the road to Eilat. This act of mass murder was a part of an all out assault on civilian targets at Israel’s southern border, a border of peace with Egypt.

This blockade prevents the recurrence of such crimes. Why should we end it?

Daniel Viflic and his school bus

Victims of the August (2011) Assault on Israel's Southern border 

And now, that Gilad Shalit is finally home, are we to make it easier for Hamas to fulfill its promises of more abductions?

Concern for civilian life in Gaza is understandable. But when such concerns come with gross lack of concern for civilian life in Israel that is difficult to understand. And if this continues and becomes a pattern, people might suspect that the lack of concern is the actual motivation of such demands.

Ground Zero mosque, an Israeli concern

When it comes to the attacks of September the 11^th, Israel was burned 3 times by this horrible crime. First by the attacks themselves, from the thousand killed there were Israelis in the towers and on the planes, not to mention hundreds of Jews. Then came the blood libels blaming Israel for those attacks. From Hizbullah, came the preposterous lie that no Jews were killed because Israel warned them, a lie that has popularity among Muslims in North America, see Marc Levin’s 2005 documentary ‘Protocols of Zion.’

The second libel, the more respected one, blames US policies towards Israel, as the reason for the murderous attacks. Al Qaeda attacked the United States for a simple reason, its ideology, an ideology that opposes everything western democracies stand for: personal liberties, freedom of religion, accountability of rulers, pluralism, and more. It is the same reason fascism, and communism were at war with the United States.

The blame on Israel rhetoric is a means to justify and support the terrorism Israel was subjected to. A terrorism that is no different then the one practiced by Al Qaeda. Both have been targeting innocent civilians in the name of Islam. The only difference is that Al Qaeda has a global agenda, and Hamas a regional one. Opposing one violent jihad in order to advance another is an act of criminal hypocrisy.

Al Qaeda is a global violent jihad movement; across the globe there are others, regional forms of violent jihad, in India, South Philippines, the Horn of Africa, Northern Nigeria, and in the Middle East against Israel. All have one thing in common, the deliberate systematic mass murder of unarmed civilians. And the best way to stop such behavior is to oppose them all. Partial opposition will get partial results if any.

But in the global political realities of today this is not going to happen. This creates a moral void that allows the occurrences of genuine war crimes and genocides, and the delegitimization campaign against Israel, long identified as a strategic threat to the country.

My concern is that this Islamic community center will allow within its walls the use of 9/11 and its proximity to the site to catapult anti Israeli ideologies and conspiracy theories. Ideologies that pretend to criticize Israel, but instead demonize and delegitimate her and support or justify the murder of its citizens.

This is not an opposition to the Islamic community center and the mosque in it. That is an American matter and a New Yorker matter. Israel’s concerns are within its sovereign territory, and with those who attack her. It is a ‘might take place’ concern and should not be treated as a ‘will take place’ concern, unless there is compelling evidence that such pro-jihadi activity is planned.

Even if this will turn out to be a ‘will take place’ concern, it will not override any of the arguments in favor of that Islamic community center. The values of freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and the rule of law, and of course the sovereignty of the United States and the city of New York, override outsiders’ concerns. And the debate, whether this Cordova House should be open, is a separate, and a distinguish debate from any debate that may ensue regarding the content of that house.

My personal hope is that this community center will deliver its promises of interfaith activities. Experience had thought many Israelis who support peace and humanitarian values to expect these hopes to be dashed. But sometimes an act of humanity does come from the Muslim and Palestinian side, usually not with regards to high profile events or personalities. Seen humanity in the words and action of your enemy, helps reconnect to the humanity that is within yourself, and that is a liberating experience. Humanity for both sides is acknowledging the suffering of the innocents on both sides – at minimum. It takes a lot of strength and political courage to do so, as well as personal one.

The question whether the people leading the Cordova Initiative has that courage has nothing to do with the debate over this Islamic community center. If the good will of many of the supporters of this community center will be punished it will be a different issue, one that is between them and the people leading the Cordova Initiative. If lies are indeed catapult against Israel, Israel will deal with it, hopefully in a non-inanimate and non-incompetent manner.

One year after ‘Operation Cast Lead’, Israel’s picture of victory.

This picture, taken by photojournalist Gadi Caballo, and published in Israel leading newspaper Yediot Achronot on December the 28^th 2009 is in my opinion Israel’s picture of victory of the ‘Gaza War’ or as we call it in Israel ‘Operation Cast Lead’.

This picture shows the normality of the town, which was always harsh, but did not include the immediate presence of death.

The structures behind the old woman, attached to those two floors buildings are security rooms, their propose is to provide immediate shelter in case of renewed enemy attacks, be it Qassam rockets, Katyusha rockets or Grad missiles.

These structures are Sderot recognizable feature. Paris has the Eiffel Tower, Venice the canals and gondolas, London the Big Ben and the black taxi cabs, the small town of Sderot has these.

The fear of another round of violence shows that the victory is not complete, but the fact that we won, that we are the ones who have returned to normality, is something for the enemy to think about, especially Hamas.

Small reminder, the Jaffa riots of May 1st 1921.

88 years ago, on May 1st, Arab inciters in Jaffa used a dispute between communists Jews and Zionist Jews in Tel Aviv to launch a pogrom on Jews of Jaffa and Jewish houses in Tel Aviv that where on the border with Jaffa and near by Arab villages.
The pictures below are in descending order of the slain body of the author and teacher Yosef Haim Brener, the most famous victim of the riots of 1921. His pupil, Tzi Shatz, who was murdered with him. Wounded survives from Jaffa that made it to Tel Aviv. The 79 years old Mordechai Haviv Asido Ashido, a shoemaker and the unofficial muchtar, village chief, of the Jews of Jaffa; he was murdered by an Arab mob that surrounded his home, after he tried to reason with them.









A few related links, 1, 2, 3.

The pogrom was followed by attacks on Petach Tikva, Rehovot, and Gedera.