Neil Salowitz: Israel must defend itself, but it still desires peace

January 9, 2009 Guest column: Israel must defend itself, but it still desires peace NEIL SALOWITZ is president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines. Contact: neil@dmjfed.org "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing." - Barack Obama, July 23, 2008, Sderot, Israel Imagine that for the past eight years, terrorists from outside the United States have fired thousands of rockets toward Iowa. Some of them have hit the schools your children attend, the church where you worship, the stores at which you shop. You and your family have been under constant fear of rocket attack - for eight years. How would you react? Would you want the U.S. government to "negotiate" with the people threatening your family? Would you want our government to respond "proportionately," whatever that means? Would you want our government to put a stop to the rocket attacks by whatever means necessary? The Israeli government is now engaged in a battle against Hamas, which has been branded a terrorist organization by both the United States and the European Union, and which has as one of its stated missions the destruction of the Jewish state. For the past eight years, Israelis have been subjected to nonstop terrorism in the form of Hamas rockets. Several years ago, the Israeli government negotiated a cease-fire with Hamas. The rocket attacks continued unabated despite the cease-fire. The agreement was formally broken by Hamas in December, and the rocket attacks against innocent civilians intensified until Israel took its recent steps to defend its citizens, first with an air campaign and now with ground forces. Israel took this action only after warning Hamas repeatedly that it would not continue to tolerate deliberate attacks on its citizens. The world, which was silent for eight years while Hamas repeatedly targeted Israeli civilians, has now suddenly found its voice, condemning Israel for doing what we would want our own government to do if someone were attacking the United States. The world ignores the fact that the Israel Defense Forces are taking steps to minimize civilian Palestinian casualties, going as far as calling Palestinians and dropping leaflets to warn of impending strikes. The world also turns a blind eye to the fact that Israel has been sending trucks into Gaza with humanitarian supplies. What other country would do that in the midst of a war? Contrast this behavior with that of Hamas, which callously uses innocent Palestinians as human shields and stores weaponry (much of which is supplied by Iran) in houses, schools, hospitals and mosques. In these circumstances, civilian casualties, always tragic, are inevitable. Hamas bears the responsibility for those casualties by deliberately putting Palestinian civilians in harm's way. Despite the current Israeli course of action to protect and defend its citizens - a course of action that has been forced upon Israel by a terrorist organization - I believe that Israelis fervently hope for the day when just and lasting peace will come to the region. The Israelis to whom I've talked have no problem with a two-state solution to the conflict in the Middle East. They simply want what the citizens of every country want - to be able to tuck their children into bed at night without fear of physical harm. In May 1948, the state of Israel declared its independence. Within hours, the combined might of five Arab armies attacked the nascent state. Israel defeated those armies in battle. Since that time, Israel has been attacked again and again, and has been forced to defend itself. The current situation is no different. Israel's actions are designed to change the security equation in order to make Israelis safe. Israel is not fighting the Palestinian people; it is fighting the terrorists who have hijacked Gaza, terrorists whose intransigence harms Palestinians as well as Israelis. Once Israel has met its security objectives and a more robust, verifiable cease-fire has been put in place to protect innocent Israeli citizens, Israelis and Palestinians of goodwill can continue on the road to true peace.

Hamas in their own words

Iowa Congressional Support for Israel

From the Israel Emergency Committee (IEC) of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines    Contact: jcrc@dmjfed.org

 Statements in Support of Israel from Iowa’s members in Congress as of 1/8/09

As of January 8, 2009, we have received the following statements on the situation in Gaza in support of Israel  from members of the Iowa Congressional Delegation.  As additional statements are made public, IEC will include them on a comprehensive listing of statements.

On a national level, statements in support of Israel have been received on a bipartisan basis.  A partial listing* appears below the statements from members of the Iowa Congressional Delegation.

News:  The United States Senate today passed a resolution today supporting Israel’s quest for peace and right to self-defense.  

 

HARKIN STATEMENT ON THE SITUATION IN GAZA

Washington, D.C.  January 8, 2009– U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) today released the following statement regarding the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

“Clearly any sovereign nation has the right and the duty to defend its borders.  And I understand and support Israel’s right to do so in defense of the rocket attacks by Hamas.

“Unfortunately, this action has escalated the violence and suffering by innocent people on both sides and this crisis will have no winners.  An open-ended conflict does not serve the long-term interests of the Israelis, Palestinians nor the international community. A ceasefire and honest negotiations for long-term peace and stability is the best way forward.  The Palestinian people deserve leadership that is committed to bringing about an end to the violence that will allow for a viable and independent Palestinian state living in peace with the State of Israel.”

 

Senator Charles Grassley on Hamas' provocation.

 

The essence of Senator Grassley's response to a reporter's question on "The Talk of Iowa"  broadcast 12/30/08 on Iowa Public Radio.

 

Question:  Is Israel's response to Hamas rocketing into Israel too much?

 

Sen. Grassley:  Hamas presumably doesn't want peace with Israel, so whatever their logic,  Hamas tries to kill Israelis by lobbing rockets  into Israel. Now, if they'd stop, Israel would not strike back at them in Gaza.  But otherwise, what would you expect the Israeli government to do?  It would be the same thing you'd expect President-elect Obama to do when he gets to be president.  If Americans were being shelled, you'd expect him to defend America. If Israel is being shot at from Gaza by Hamas, Hamas should expect to be shot back at.  I mean, that's just the way the world works.

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Congressman Leonard Boswell’s Statement on the Gaza Situation

 

“I strongly support Israel’s right to defend itself against the rocket attacks by Hamas—attacks which have killed and injured Israeli citizens.  Israel’s actions are understandable.  We must stand by our ally and be involved in any negotiations.  I’m heartened to learn today of a possible a cease fire proposal.  However, any cease fire must ensure an end to the terrorist attacks by Hamas.”   

-- January 7, 2008. Conveyed by Susan McAvoy.     

------------------------------------------------------------------------U.S. Congressman Steve King
Iowa’s Fifth Congressional District
http://www.house.gov/steveking/
_____________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                            CONTACT: Matt Lahr
       December 31, 2008                                                                         Office: 202.225.4426 / Cell: 202.577.5138

King Statement on Gaza Situation

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Congressman Steve King made the following statement today on the current situation in Gaza.

"We all want peace in the Middle East, but a true agreement that balances Israel’s security concerns with the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people can only be obtained if senseless violence in this region ends.

“When Hamas chose to abandon a six-month peace agreement in favor of rocket attacks against Israel on December 19, Israel rightfully responded to defend its people. An estimated 500,000 Israeli citizens are now within range of Hamas’ rocket arsenal, and each unprovoked attack from Hamas puts thousands of lives at risk.

“Hamas should immediate suspend its attacks and pledge to work with Israel on an agreement bringing peace to this troubled region.”

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*Partial listing of statements ( as of December 31, 2008)  in support of Israel from Members of Congress. [Text of statements are available upon request.]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, House Minority Leader John Boehner, Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Christopher Bond, Chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission Alcee Hastings,  Ranking Member of the Senate Subcommittee on State-Foreign Operations Judd Gregg, Sen. Benjamin Cardin, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Howard Berman, Chairwoman of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Nita Lowey, Incoming Republican Whip Eric Cantor, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Vice-Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East Ron Klein, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Europe Robert Wexler, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade Brad Sherman.

 

 

Yes, it's anti-Semitism
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | January 7, 2009

CRITICIZING Israel doesn't make you anti-Semitic: If it's been said once, it's been said a thousand times. Yet somehow that message doesn't seem to have reached the hundreds of anti-Israel demonstrators in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who turned out last week to protest Israel's military operation in Gaza. As their signs and chants made clear, it isn't only the Jewish state's policies they oppose. Their animus goes further.

Demonstrators chanted "Nuke, nuke Israel!" and carried placards accusing Israel of "ethnic cleansing" and bearing such messages as: "Did Israel take notes during the Holocaust? Happy Hanukkah." To the dozen or so supporters of Israel gathered across the street, one demonstrator shouted: "Murderers! Go back to the ovens! You need a big oven."

The Arab-Israeli conflict induces strong passions, and the line that separates legitimate disapproval of Israel from anti-Semitism may not always be obvious. But it's safe to assume the line has been crossed when you hear someone urging Jews "back to the ovens."

The Danish website Snaphanen posted a photo the other day of a pamphlet being distributed in Copenhagen's City Hall Square. On one side it proclaimed: "Never Peace With Israel!" and "Kill Israel's People!" On the other side: "Kill Jewish people evry where in ther world!" The leaflet's spelling left something to be desired, but its message of genocidal anti-Semitism couldn't have been clearer.

Likewise the message in Amsterdam on Saturday, where the crowd at an anti-Israel rally repeatedly chanted, "Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas." And the message in Belgium, where pro-Hamas demonstrators torched Israeli flags, burned a public menorah, and painted swastikas on Jewish-owned shops.

Only marginally less vile is the message that has been trumpeted at demonstrations from Boston to Los Angeles to Vancouver: "Palestine will be free/ From the river to the sea" - a restatement in rhyme of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped from the map."

Let's say it for the thousand-and-first time: Every negative comment about Israel is not an expression of bigotry. Israel is no more immune to criticism than any other country. But it takes willful blindness not to see that anti-Zionism today - opposition to the existence of Israel, rejection of the idea that the Jewish people are entitled to a state - is merely the old wine of anti-Semitism in its newest bottle.

The hatred of Jews has always been protean, readily revising itself to reflect the idiom of its age. At times, it targeted Jews for their religion, demonizing them as Christ-killers or enemies of the true faith. At other times, Jews have been damned as disloyal fifth columns to be suppressed or expelled, or as a racial malignancy to be physically exterminated.

In our day, Jew-hatred expresses itself overwhelmingly in national terms: It is the Jewish state that the haters are obsessed with. "What anti-Semitism once did to Jews as people, it now does to Jews as a people," the British commentator Melanie Phillips has written. "First it wanted the Jewish religion, and then the Jews themselves, to disappear; now it wants the Jewish state to disappear."

The claim that anti-Zionism isn't bigotry would be preposterous in any other context. Imagine someone vehemently asserting that Ireland has no right to exist, that Irish nationalism is racism, and that those who murder Irishmen are actually victims deserving the world's sympathy. Who would take his fulminations for anything but anti-Irish bigotry? Or believe him if he said that he harbors no prejudice against the Irish?

By the same token, those who demonize and delegitimize Israel, who say the world would be better off without it, who hold it to standards of perfection no other country is held to, who extol or commiserate with its mortal enemies, who liken it to Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa, who make it the scapegoat not only for crimes it hasn't committed, but for those of which it is a victim - yes, such people are anti-Semitic, whether they acknowledge it or not.

Criticize Israel? Certainly. But those who so loudly denounce Israel in its war against Hamas are siding with some of the most virulent Jew-haters on earth. They may tell themselves that that doesn't make them anti-Semites. But it does.

Fair Witness Press Release / Churches' Responses To Israel's Attack on Gaza

Christians For Fair Witness on the Middle East

*Fair Witness Questions Church Leaders' Responses To Israel's Attack on
Hamas*

Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East ("Fair Witness") is
greatly disturbed by the escalating violence in Israel and Gaza and the
tragic loss of innocent Palestinian and Israeli lives. As many church
leaders in the U.S. demand an immediate cease fire however, we challenge
them to acknowledge not only the human suffering, but the political
realities in the region.

"In November 2001, Hamas, which openly declares its commitment to the
destruction of the State of Israel, began a terror campaign launching
rockets from Gaza into civilian targets within Israel," says Rev. Dr.
Bruce Chilton, the Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard
College in Annandale, New York. "It was Hamas that chose not to extend
the existing cease-fire on December 18, resuming hundreds of attacks on
the civilian population in Southern Israel. It is Hamas that chooses,
with the Israeli army sitting right outside Gaza, to continue to target
civilian areas in towns behind the army."

"Maybe people don't realize what has been going on in Israel for the
past seven years," says Rev. James Noland, Senior Pastor of Reveille
United Methodist Church in Richmond, Virginia. "I was in Sderot in
October 2007. Six Qassam rockets hit the town just before we arrived.
We saw three blimps in the air that circulate 24 hours a day seven days
a week to detect incoming rockets. When the sirens go off people have
twenty seconds to get into a bomb shelter. Kids couldn't sleep, everyone
was afraid to leave their homes, people died, people had their legs
blown off. It was especially disturbing to see these Qassams up close
-- they were built not to cause damage to
structures, but to kill and maim human beings. It was terrifying. How
many years are people supposed to live like that before putting a stop
to it?"

Rev. Dr. Scott Ickert, pastor of Resurrection Lutheran Church in
Arlington, Virginia, says "I have to put myself in the shoes of the
people of Sderot and ask if some foreign country started throwing
rockets at the town where my family and I live what would I expect my
government to do to protect me?
I think only after we answer that question in an honest way can we
presume to judge what constitutes an appropriate and adequate response
to Hamas'
provocations."

Rev. Dr. Peter Pettit, Director of the Institute for Jewish Christian
Understanding at Muhlenberg College says "Hamas has claimed its place
as the liberators of Palestine and the implacable foes of the State of
Israel
-- not only of Israeli occupation, but of Israel's very existence. We do
not condone or encourage violent resolution of political conflicts, but
we question some church leaders who condemn only Israel's military
action while ignoring Hamas' courting and conduct of this war. We have
to question church leaders who condemn Israel for a disproportionate
response, while failing to set this action in the context of a long-term
course of violent struggle to which Hamas has committed itself in
defiance of Israel's legitimacy as a nation."

--
Sr. Ruth Lautt, OP, Esq.

National Director

Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East

475 Riverside Drive, Ste 1960
New York, NY 10115

(212) 870-2320

www.christianfairwitness.com

Corrected version and appended request from JCRC:

A Message from the President of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines

Israeli ground troops are now operating inside Gaza in the next phase of Israel's campaign to defend its citizens in the southern part of the country from ongoing rocket attacks by the terrorist organization Hamas. Hamas' actions in breaking the cease-fire agreement and intensifying its rocket barrage are consistent with its stated mission of eliminating the Jewish state of Israel.

Israel has the right and the obligation to protect its citizens. The current US administration, President-Elect Obama and the international community support that right.

Israel is doing all that it can to minimize civilian casualties, including calling Palestinians in advance of airstrikes. Unfortunately, Hamas intentionally places its installations and launching pads in residential areas, and stores illegally-obtained weaponry from Iran in homes, schools, hospitals and mosques. Thus, some civilian casualties are inevitable. The responsibility for the safety of Palestinian civilians lies squarely with Hamas, which has callously chosen to place civilians in harm's way.

Please join me in praying for the safety of the Israel Defense Forces, its pilots, tank commanders and ground troops who are on the front lines, ensuring Israel's survival. Please also join me in praying for peace for Israelis, and for the innocent Palestinians who are the victims of their leaders' misguided fanaticism.

Am Yisroel Chai! The people of Israel live!

Neil Salowitz
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JCRC would encourage you to forward the above message from the President of the Jewish Federation to members of the general community, to discuss the message's content with friends and colleagues, and to consider writing letters to your local newspapers in support of Israel's defense against terrorism.

Sen. Grassley: Hamas should expect to be shot back at.

Senator Charles Grassley (Iowa) on Hamas' provocation.

 

The essence of Senator Grassley's response to a reporter's question on "The Talk of Iowa"  broadcast 12/30/08 on Iowa Public Radio.

 

Question:  Is Israel's response too much in response to Hamas rocketing into Israel?

 

Sen. Grassley:  Hamas presumably doesn't want peace with Israel, so whatever their logic,  Hamas tries to kill Israelis by lobbing rockets  into Israel. Now, if they'd stop, Israel would not strike back at them in Gaza.  But otherwise, what would you expect the Israeli government to do?  It would be the same thing you'd expect President-elect Obama to do when he gets to be president.  If Americans were being shelled, you'd expect him to defend America. If Israel is being shot at from Gaza by Hamas, Hamas should expect to be shot back at.  I mean, that's just the way the world works.