Avoidable waste of lives, 22 days of wakeful nights and 2200 destroyed homes: the cost of Hamas indiscretion.

By Ilobi Austin.

The Israelis authorities, some days to the inauguration of the Barack Obama led administration in America­­, did indeed, decided on a unilateral cease fire and withdrawal of her forces--to the relief of traumatized Gazans, who have had to bear the brunt of her retaliatory attacks, and perhaps, a some what deference for the new president, from Gaza. A very wise option it would seem, as allowing the operations to drag on would have turned off it power to awe and most significantly, its truth – the punishment of Hamas and its supporters and curbing of its extremist wing ability to smuggle in and fire rockets into her territory and instilling of fear into the rest of the citizens, as a deterrent for would be future trouble makers.

Most noteworthy is the fact that the withdrawal has for sure; put a lie to the propagandized tale from the traitors of truth, of Israel’s undeclared plot to re-occupy Gaza: a territory they had voluntarily given up, of their own accord.

These traitors are the same set of characters, who, filled with the hate bile, harangues and deceives those who actually wants to be deceived like the Hamas militant and other such groups, into direct suicidal confrontations with the Israelis believing that that is necessary, to compel the Israelis to give up Jerusalem; and achieve their personal often publicly stated hallucinatory desire of total annihilation of the Jewish state. The cost of this latest misadventure, after the Hezbollah 2006 escapades, is out and bears a little telling.

For 22 days- that discounts those days that Hamas radicals were launching un-replied rockets into Israel, both parties had tried to cancel out each other. While Hamas elements fired rockets indiscriminately into Israel, with the sole objective of destroying both lives and property within it range, the manifestly superior Israeli forces in return, took the fight into Gaza, distributing both punishment and fear, to one and all. For those three weeks, citizens of both territories living within the red zone were unavoidably, targets for forces of the other side and consequently, had to keep awake and move when it was advisedly imperative, to do so.

The Israelis military commanders after reviewing the operation have stated that their objectives were not just met but surpassed and Hamas equally and as expected, has also claimed victory and to underscore this, have gone on to celebrate it through the street of Gaza. This is understandable.

But for the international community led by the United Nation, it has been nothing but outrage and shock over the scale of destruction wrath on Gaza by the Israeli forces and talks of international trial for crimes against humanity, all no doubt and confidently, mere academic exercise as I am very confident that, should Hamas repeat the same act, Gaza would be visited with a more extensive and intensive military operations. Otherwise, the military competence of Israel would amount to nothing if it can not be called up for the defence of her territory against such threat.

But one is confident that a return to the trenches is not immediate. No. It would be a long time before either Hamas or the citizens of Gaza approves of a repeat because; the punishment naturally, would be better imagined than experienced. And that is the objective of the large scale assault visited on the territory. A lesser operation would not have had the same impact so, a resort to the extra-ordinary measures.

While violence has been deployed by the Israelis to cancel out violence rather than beget it as was the case with that of Hamas, one is hopeful that with the exhaustion of the violent option, the alternative which is dialogue would now be explored with the same tenacity with which the operation was executed.

The Palestinians believe they have got a just case against their brothers on the other side on the issue of Jerusalem but resorting to violence only obscures this and subtracts from it. Let them take it to the table and let their brothers bring their facts as they know it to the same table to be exchanged under an impartial umpire.


Ilobi Austin writes from Nigeria. His writings on topical issues are available @http://www.vibratingaustin.blogspot.com