by Mick Davis
Compassion for Palestinians caught in the crossfire should not translate into support for Hamas, says Mick Davis
I
wake up every morning in dread, grabbing my iPhone to see what horrors
the night has brought. And every morning the list of the dead grows
longer. More families that will never know unalloyed joy
again. I wish it would just end. Every day I have to pick a side. On
one side is Israel’s right to defend itself, at great cost and with
great sorrow. On the other side, Hamas. Every day I pick the same side:
Israel. Not because I don’t value the lives of
Palestinians. Not because I am brutal or bloodthirsty.
I
side with Israel every morning because I believe in the fundamental
right of Israel to exist, in the right of its citizens to security and
in the essential duty of its democratically elected government
to ensure that security. Three simple beliefs which, if we replace the
name of Israel with that of any western democracy, would not be
controversial.
We
now know, without a doubt, that Hamas fires rockets indiscriminately at
civilians in Israel, that Hamas has spent what little it received in
money and materials to build tunnels to facilitate killing
and kidnapping civilians in Israel and that it uses the civilian
population of Gaza as human shields. On these facts, even supporters of
Hamas or ardent opponents of Israel’s actions agree.
Israel’s
government is not only justified but obliged to use force to defend its
citizens from the Hamas regime. So why the sense of unease? Because of
the sheer scale of the death and destruction.
I cannot help but feel sadness and admiration for the bravery of
Israeli soldiers who have lost their lives defending their country and
their people. Equally, I feel enormous compassion for the innocents in
Gaza who have lost lives, loved ones and homes.
But
I cannot use numbers to judge what is right and wrong. What lies behind
these numbers is the disparity between the government of Israel’s
actions and Hamas’s actions in the way they treat their
populations. Israel builds shelters, Iron Domes and warning sirens;
Hamas puts its civilians as human shields in front of its fighters. So
the logic of the body count is not one that helps me to pick sides. It
does, though, fill me with sadness, as it does
most Israelis.
I
don’t say that anything is justified in the fight against evil. War is
ugly and it is hard to defeat the evil of Hamas, an enemy that defends
itself not with weapons but with the bodies of women
and children.
Many
people cannot see through the perverse logic of an enemy who uses its
own people’s death as a weapon. They mistake their deep sense of
compassion for an appropriate moral compass without realising
that they are observing the most cynical and evil regime. Others, those
who oppose Israel’s very existence, see this as an opportunity: an
opportunity to turn the world against Israel and to help Hamas in its
quest to get rid of the hated Zionist entity.
This
is why I stand with Israel. Because when we are mealy mouthed, when we
are unclear, when we keep silent, when we are not willing to be counted,
those who would destroy Israel notch up another
victory. But this support for Israel in its war with Hamas is not at
the expense of the rights of the Palestinian people to
self-determination in their own state and to live in peace: I am on
record time and again arguing for these rights and encouraging the
government of Israel to build a momentum towards this goal and create
conditions for prosperity for both the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
But Hamas is not Gaza, and Hamas is not Palestine.
Tomorrow
we can engage in a serious discussion about how best a state facing
terror should defend itself while protecting civilians placed in the
line of fire. But today we need to choose where we
stand between Israel and Hamas, and I choose Israel, as should every
other right thinking person.
Mick Davis is the chairman of the Jewish Leadership CouncilSource: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/regulars/guestcolumn/article1442059.ece
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