Give Us A Break

Here are the two letters from readers in today's NYTimes:

Finger-Pointing Over the Plight of the Gazans

To the Editor:

Re “Trapped in Gaza” (editorial, Jan. 24):

The treatment of the Gazans is, as you say, a disgrace. But who is to blame for the disgrace? Here, two crucial facts have a way of conveniently disappearing.

First, the cause of the Gazans’ ordeal is not the inevitable and measured Israeli response to an unrelenting rocket bombardment of Hamas rockets from Gaza; the cause is the bombardment, and that bombardment will continue as long as Hamas deems it essential to its war of attrition on Israel’s very existence.

The notion of a measured response needs emphasis here; any other state being forced to die the death of a thousand cuts would long ago have declared total war against its would-be destroyers.

Second, the ordinary citizens of Gaza are not mere “pawns” in the war of Hamas on the existence of Israel. They have been turned into human shields by the very same Hamas they elected to represent and protect them, but whose hatred of Israel’s existence they share.

This blindness is the Gazans’ tragedy. The disgrace remains Hamas’s alone.

Harold Skulsky
Forest Hills, Queens

•

To the Editor:

Hamas, the freely elected government of Gaza, rules the strip with an iron hand. Should Hamas wish to cease the terrorist rain of rocket fire on Israel, it can do so with a moment’s notice.

It is the people of Gaza who are the innocent pawns in Hamas’s violent chess match. If the Annapolis initiative crumbles, it will be because for too long the Palestinians have tried to avoid the reality that there are consequences for actions — and in particular, actions that are under their control.

David M. Hirsch
Providence, R.I.

Okay, what caught my eye?

Right, the noun "pawns".

So, I went back a day and here's the sentence they needed to respond to from the previous day's editorial:

The neglect and mistreatment of the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip is a disgrace, and a very dangerous one. They are pawns in the struggle among Hamas, which controls Gaza and uses the territory to bombard Israel daily;

Pawns?

They voted the Hamas in.
They allow the Hamas to rule them.
They permit the Hamas to use their fields and courtyards for launching sites of Qasams.
They do not demonstrate against as in Ireland, Ukraine and Kenya.
They do not take any civic action which many other peoples have taken and which they have seen on the TV sets via Al-Jazeera, etc.
They are passive at best and at worst, complicit in the Hamas crimes against Israel and aginst themselves.

Good old poo-poo NYTimes.

===========

So, I sent the paper this letter:-

Both your letters writers, in responding (Jan. 25) to the previous edition's editorial on Gaza ("Trapped in Gaza"), agree with the premise that Gaza's ordinary citizens are innocent and, indeed, even passive victims to the violence being perpetrated against them. But that is incorrect.

They voted the Hamas in and they continue to allow the Hamas to rule them. They permit the Hamas to use their fields and frontyards for launching sites of Qasams. They do not restrain their children from getting involved in the anti-Jewish terror and at times, encourage them. On the other hand, they do not demonstrate in the city squares against these injustices as in Ireland, Ukraine and Kenya. They do not demand new elections. They do not take any civic action which many other peoples have taken and which they have seen on the TV sets.

Pawns? No. They are complicit in the Hamas crimes against Israel and against themselves.