Eyeless in Gaza - I posted this in 2018

 

I was originally angry with the Israeli army for killing fifty civilians trying to storm the border with the Gaza Strip, but reading about it - in particular what was written by Colonel Kemp, a retired British officer, in the Telegraph - it seems the Israelis did what they could to avoid fatalities and are not to blame for the civilian deaths. 

The army did not shoot indiscriminately and it has now been revealed by the Palestinians themselves that 50 of the 62 dead were Hamas members.

Hamas wanted to breach the wall and to flatten the fence at numerous points to allow hundreds or even thousands of Gazans to enter Israeli towns, overwhelming the Israeli security forces ability to protect the townspeople from the infiltrators, thus requiring the Israeli security forces to use lethal force against all those who infiltrated.

Similar demonstrations have taken place each week since March. The reason that this demonstration was a very big one was that it marked the 70th anniversary of the creation of Israel, rather than the Americans moving their embassy to Jerusalem, but it was moved a day to take advantage of the publicity around the opening of the embassy. 

Behind the women and children who died were, in some cases, armed men intent on killing Israelis. So the Israelis claim, at least. Israeli soldiers would rather kill 100 of the other side's people than have one Israeli soldier killed, which I think is reasonable.

I am reminded of Frauke Petry, the AfD leader in Germany, who got into trouble for saying in the last resort border guards have to shoot. She, of course, was right.

Whatever Likud should or should not do, Europe has to guard its frontiers. At the moment a stupid EU policy is responsible for many deaths.

Widespread condemnation of Israel is very understandable - it is fuelled, in many cases, simply by sympathy for the victims and in other cases by a political animus against Israel based not on anti-Jewish feeling but anti-colonialism. 

Yet, though there are strong arguments that Israel's title to the land she occupies is at least shaky and her treatment of the Arabs objectionable, the fact that the Jewish state is a colonial settlement, an old-fashioned ethnic state, a democracy and an oasis of Western civilisation are not reasons for disliking but for liking Israel.


What we can certainly say is that Israel is a lesson in why mass immigration is often disastrous. Europe, please take note.


Northern Ireland is another lesson.


North America, Australia and New Zealand, on the other hand, turned out fairly well, but they were conquered - the Englishmen who set up in Virginia in the seventeenth century were settlers, not immigrants. There is, or should be, a very big difference.


I sympathise with the Arabs very much, but also with the Jews. Israel is a great place to live if you are an Arab whose grandfather did not leave and was not ejected in 1948. An old Arab priest in Nazareth told me Israel's the best place to be a Christian in the Middle East. 

I know Hamas are dangerous terrorists. I know Israel was built partly by terrorists like the Stern gang, who killed British soldiers.  

In fact the whole issue is for me a huge bore and has nothing to do with my country's interests, although I know that Great Britain created the problem a hundred years ago. Why does America care about this endless conflict? Why not let Israel, Iran, Russia, etc. sort things out or fail to do so?