The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, says “Israeli strikes in Gaza go beyond what is necessary to fight Hamas”. Perhaps she should head to Jerusalem and give precise instructions to the IDF on what they should be doing to eliminate the Hamas terrorist regime – assuming that’s what she actually wants. She can tell them how you kill terrorists entwined into the population, hiding in tunnels beneath schools, hospitals and houses, protected by the most comprehensively booby-trapped terrain in the history of warfare, all while minimising harm to civilians.
Of course, like so many other blowhard Western politicians, she doesn’t have a clue. Fortunately the IDF does and has been waging this hugely complex war for 19 months with a combination of fighting prowess and humanitarian restraint that no other army could match. That is the true picture that I have witnessed with my own eyes, unlike the vast array of armchair commentators and rabble-rousers with their lies and distortions intended to break Israel or signal their own non-existent virtues or both.
And Israel has had unparalleled success. They have killed something like 20-25,000 Hamas terrorists, including many senior commanders. The latest of these is Mohammed Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, blown apart in an air strike earlier this month as he was skulking in a tunnel beneath a hospital in Khan Younis. His older brother Yahya, from whom he took over the reins of Hamas, met his maker last October. Shortly before that Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s military commander, saw the same fate.
The list goes on, and many more would have joined it had the IDF not been so determined to avoid killing the hostages and where possible to avoid harm to civilians in line with their scrupulously observed obligations under International Humanitarian Law. Those who have been dispatched have been replaced, though by less experienced and less able terrorists, but I’m not sure how long the list of applicants will be for the Sinwar brothers’ uniquely hazardous job.
Kallas also rejects Israel’s latest efforts to get aid to Gazan civilians while preventing it from falling into the hands of Hamas. While she pontificates from her headquarters in Brussels with its lavish restaurants, Gazans have been enthusiastically queuing up in their thousands to collect food and even camping out overnight.
But Kallas is in good company. Hamas also rejects this aid system and has been threatening Gazans against using it. Nor does the UN like it one little bit, despite the outrageously fake assertion last week that 14,000 babies would die of malnutrition in 48 hours.
Hamas’s position is understandable. It is focused on survival and pretty much its only source of funds now is from hijacking and selling aid at premium prices. But what about Kallas, the UN and even our own Government which also does not support this new initiative?
It is hard to escape the conclusion, with the growing chorus of condemnations against Israel, that these people are terrified Jerusalem will win this war. That’s the last thing they want as it would undermine any leverage they might have in pursuit of the holy grail of a “two state solution”.
Lacking insight, or terrified of being seen to have been wrong all along, they utterly fail to recognise that a two state solution is permanently interred after Hamas hammered the final nail into its coffin on October 7 2023.
Unfortunately for the unholy alliance against its victory, Israel is going to prevail – and not just in Gaza. Prime minister Netanyahu launched a dazzling operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon last year that eliminated its overlord Hassan Nasrallah and took out much of its leadership by using explosive-laden pagers. Meanwhile the IDF shattered much of its military capability, especially the long-range missiles that existed to threaten Israel.
Hezbollah is not finished but its potential to cause harm has been dramatically degraded. It will have difficulty rebuilding as it has lost the vital terrain of Assad’s Syria, again as a direct result of Israeli action.
Iran itself, the mastermind of the jihadist plan to suffocate Israel using region-wide terror proxies, was humiliated by its failure to damage Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones, not to mention an inability to protect Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh who was taken out right next to the president’s official residence in Tehran. Even worse, the Islamic Republic is now badly exposed, following the Israeli Air Force’s evisceration of its Russian-supplied air defences.
The likes of Kallas and her faint-hearted fellow travellers have no power to stand in Israel’s path, but their words and threatened actions certainly encourage Hamas. Apart from the hostages it holds, its only card is the vilification of Israel by the international community and the accompanying weaponisation of legal warfare.
Hamas could end all the bloodshed and the deprivation overnight by laying down its arms and releasing the hostages. If the EU, the UN and those governments so eager to condemn the Jewish state actually wanted to achieve peace, they would support Israel in words and actions, and condemn Hamas at every turn.
The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, says “Israeli strikes in Gaza go beyond what is necessary to fight Hamas”. Perhaps she should head to Jerusalem and give precise instructions to the IDF on what they should be doing to eliminate the Hamas terrorist regime – assuming that’s what she actually wants. She can tell them how you kill terrorists entwined into the population, hiding in tunnels beneath schools, hospitals and houses, protected by the most comprehensively booby-trapped terrain in the history of warfare, all while minimising harm to civilians.
Of course, like so many other blowhard Western politicians, she doesn’t have a clue. Fortunately the IDF does and has been waging this hugely complex war for 19 months with a combination of fighting prowess and humanitarian restraint that no other army could match. That is the true picture that I have witnessed with my own eyes, unlike the vast array of armchair commentators and rabble-rousers with their lies and distortions intended to break Israel or signal their own non-existent virtues or both.
And Israel has had unparalleled success. They have killed something like 20-25,000 Hamas terrorists, including many senior commanders. The latest of these is Mohammed Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, blown apart in an air strike earlier this month as he was skulking in a tunnel beneath a hospital in Khan Younis. His older brother Yahya, from whom he took over the reins of Hamas, met his maker last October. Shortly before that Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s military commander, saw the same fate.
The list goes on, and many more would have joined it had the IDF not been so determined to avoid killing the hostages and where possible to avoid harm to civilians in line with their scrupulously observed obligations under International Humanitarian Law. Those who have been dispatched have been replaced, though by less experienced and less able terrorists, but I’m not sure how long the list of applicants will be for the Sinwar brothers’ uniquely hazardous job.
Kallas also rejects Israel’s latest efforts to get aid to Gazan civilians while preventing it from falling into the hands of Hamas. While she pontificates from her headquarters in Brussels with its lavish restaurants, Gazans have been enthusiastically queuing up in their thousands to collect food and even camping out overnight.
But Kallas is in good company. Hamas also rejects this aid system and has been threatening Gazans against using it. Nor does the UN like it one little bit, despite the outrageously fake assertion last week that 14,000 babies would die of malnutrition in 48 hours.
Hamas’s position is understandable. It is focused on survival and pretty much its only source of funds now is from hijacking and selling aid at premium prices. But what about Kallas, the UN and even our own Government which also does not support this new initiative?
It is hard to escape the conclusion, with the growing chorus of condemnations against Israel, that these people are terrified Jerusalem will win this war. That’s the last thing they want as it would undermine any leverage they might have in pursuit of the holy grail of a “two state solution”.
Lacking insight, or terrified of being seen to have been wrong all along, they utterly fail to recognise that a two state solution is permanently interred after Hamas hammered the final nail into its coffin on October 7 2023.
Unfortunately for the unholy alliance against its victory, Israel is going to prevail – and not just in Gaza. Prime minister Netanyahu launched a dazzling operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon last year that eliminated its overlord Hassan Nasrallah and took out much of its leadership by using explosive-laden pagers. Meanwhile the IDF shattered much of its military capability, especially the long-range missiles that existed to threaten Israel.
Hezbollah is not finished but its potential to cause harm has been dramatically degraded. It will have difficulty rebuilding as it has lost the vital terrain of Assad’s Syria, again as a direct result of Israeli action.
Iran itself, the mastermind of the jihadist plan to suffocate Israel using region-wide terror proxies, was humiliated by its failure to damage Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones, not to mention an inability to protect Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh who was taken out right next to the president’s official residence in Tehran. Even worse, the Islamic Republic is now badly exposed, following the Israeli Air Force’s evisceration of its Russian-supplied air defences.
The likes of Kallas and her faint-hearted fellow travellers have no power to stand in Israel’s path, but their words and threatened actions certainly encourage Hamas. Apart from the hostages it holds, its only card is the vilification of Israel by the international community and the accompanying weaponisation of legal warfare.
Hamas could end all the bloodshed and the deprivation overnight by laying down its arms and releasing the hostages. If the EU, the UN and those governments so eager to condemn the Jewish state actually wanted to achieve peace, they would support Israel in words and actions, and condemn Hamas at every turn.