David Taintor

If you watched TV or read newspaper articles during the three-week conflict in Gaza, you were no doubt troubled by the accounts of aerial bombing, ground invasion and civilian casualties.

You may well think that Israel overreacted and used disproportionate force.

As an Israeli studying at UW-Eau Claire, I too mourned the loss of lives of Israelis and Palestinians. But I believe that the actions of the Israeli government and military were justified and would like to explain my reasons for thinking so.

Beginning in April of 2001, residents of Gaza began to shoot Kassam rockets into southern Israel. These rockets had a limited range of about eight miles. But they occasionally caused death and injury and the great numbers that were launched, about 10,000, meant the residents of southern Israeli towns, such as Sderot, lived in constant terror. The rockets were deliberately directed at civilian targets.

The Israeli government did acknowledge the occupation of Gaza caused resentment among Palestinians, and in 2005 unilaterally decided to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

This caused great controversy within Israel and a great uproar among the 8,000 Israelis who had lived in Gaza for over 30 years. But the hope was the withdrawal of Israeli settlers and soldiers would allow Israelis and Palestinians to make progress toward peace and would bring prosperity to the Palestinians in Gaza.

Greenhouses, which had been run very profitably, were left intact to be run by Palestinians.

However, the hopes for peace were soon shattered as Palestinian gunmen destroyed the greenhouses and Gaza became a staging area for Hamas and other militant groups to continue to launch missiles against Israel.

The people of Gaza elected Hamas as their government. But Hamas has placed its priority on fostering terrorism in order to achieve its goal of destroying the State of Israel rather than trying to enhance the welfare of its own people.

The number of missiles actually increased after the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. In an interview with the German newspaper “Der Spiegel” on Aug. 21 2007, Hamas’ leader and former foreign minister Mahmoud Azahar explained Hamas’ reasoning.

“Rockets against Sderot will cause mass migration, greatly disrupt daily lives and government administration and can make a much larger impact on the government,” Azahar said.

Israel put up with the situation for more than seven years and the people of Sderot and other southern Israeli towns suffered.

Although there was a “cease fire” for almost a year, rockets continued to be fired occasionally. I have family and friends living in that area and know how difficult their lives have been.

But as bad as the situation had been, recent developments led to an escalation that Israel could not allow. Hamas has recently been able to smuggle in much more advanced weapons, such as Grad missiles supplied by Iran that can reach 30 miles. This means that Hamas and other militant groups can now endanger the lives of a million Israelis, or one-seventh of the population.

How would Americans react if missiles were fired daily from Canada? Would we advise the people living in those areas to be patient and accept the occasional death and frequent injury and damage to property, or would they demand that their government take action?

The goal of the Israeli military campaign against Hamas was to substantially reduce the ability to fire rockets on Israel by destroying the weapons and launching sites. Israel used sophisticated military equipment and intelligence to target military personnel, weapons and tunnels used to smuggle weapons and made great efforts to reduce civilian casualties. But Hamas purposely uses civilian areas (homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, etc.) as places to store weapons, house military operations and launch attacks.

Hamas knows that by shooting from those areas toward the Israeli army, they reduce the chance that the Israel Defense Force will shoot back. And if there were a military response, the rising civilian death toll would generate harsh international condemnation and place pressure on Israel to stop its attack. Israel was able to destroy the vast majority of Hamas weapons stores and rocket manufacturing workshops. But future peace rests upon effective efforts, by Egypt and other countries, to block the arms traffic into Gaza.

Irwin Colter, professor of Law at McGill University and director of the McGill International Human Rights Advocacy Center and has also taught at Harvard and Yale, concludes that Hamas is guilty of war crimes.

It is a war crime to deliberately target civilians such as the attacks on southern Israel and it is a war crime to use civilians as human shields.

Hamas is also guilty of the war crime of using humanitarian symbols such as an ambulance to transport fighters or weapons and disguising military personnel as civilians.

A statement from President Barack Obama’s inaugural address seems particularly relevant:

“To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West – know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”

As an Israeli, I share Obama’s hope. The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has gone on far too long.

Fireizen is a senior biology major with an emphasis on pre-med and guest columnist for The Spectator.