Ben Kerido / From Israel with Love Blog
On the morning of January 1st, 2022, Palestinian Arab terrorists in the Gaza Strip ushered in the new year with a barrage of rockets aimed at Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. The Israeli Air Force and IDF artillery teams responded with pin-point precision retaliatory strikes against rocket-launching positions.
Hamas, the terrorist organization controlling the Gaza Strip, claimed that it was recent mildly bad weather, namely a drizzling rain storm, that — somehow, inexplicably — launched the rockets, not human militants.
In reality, the Israel Defense Force has claimed that members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization allied with and “sub-contracted” by Hamas, fired the deadly weapons.
This is a political tactic that has been used by Hamas for decades, and for as long as I have served in the Israel Defense Force — since 2007. In a vain and rather ridiculous attempt to avoid liability, Hamas sponsors, funds, and delegates “contracted” terrorist allies, especially the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) to do their dirty work. Then Hamas claims that they never attacked Israel or did anything violent, and therefore Israel somehow has no right to defend itself.
In my thriller novel that I recently penned with my wife, The American Holocaust – Early Tomorrow Morning, I allude to and describe this concept and how the Israel Defense Force responds to it extensively and in detail. This was something that I encountered and mitigated personally in various IDF combat operations.
At any rate, the Israel Defense Force and relevant Israeli government officials were less than impressed with Hamas’ excuses. As one spokesperson said, calling out Hamas on their bluff, that if Hamas rockets cannot be controlled or maintained and they randomly launch themselves at Israeli civilian targets “by unintentional accident” due to bad weather, then clearly Hamas needs to demilitarize itself and remove all rockets from the Gaza Strip.
By the way, doesn’t this sound oddly similar to Leftist gun control advocates who decry guns as inherently dangerous, as opposed to the bad people who use them violently and illegally.
The Israeli government has emphasized that they will not tolerate further escalation from the Gaza Strip. But we here in Israel are left wondering what that actually means. The Bennett-Lapid political coalition is hanging on by a thread for its ongoing existence, which requires the full cooperation of their entire member base. This includes all of the Arab members of the K’nesset (Israeli parliament), some of whom are openly aligned with the Hamas terrorist organization. (Yes, that is the sad, undisputed reality; you can’t make this up). In contrast, there is little doubt that Benyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s coalition had/would have razor sharp teeth backing up such warnings and statements.
Such being the case, it is uncertain what the upcoming year of 2022 has in store as Hamas and their Iranian sponsors rattle their Islamic sabres against the only Jewish State in the world. The situation is further exacerbated as Joe “Brandon” Biden continues to reverse Trump-era halts on funding of hundreds of millions of US tax dollars to Palestinian entities that are often affiliated directly or indirectly with agents of terror. But as a reservist serving in a special forces unit in the Israel Defense Force, I will be sure to keep you posted.
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