ARSEN OSTROVSKY-WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE OVER THE BOMBARDMENT OF CIVILIANS IN ISRAEL? (FROM UK TELEGRAPH)
Where is the outrage over the bombardment of civilians in Israel?
Hundreds of rockets have been fired and a million citizens are forced to run for cover. Imagine if London suffered this bombardment
You see, as most people in the UK were waking up this morning, and those in Europe, United State and elsewhere around the world were going about their daily routines, here in Israel over one million people were running for cover from a hail of rockets being rained down by Palestinian Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
In the last 24 hours alone, over 120 rockets have been fired on southern Israel. That’s approximately five rockets per hour. By the time I finish this article, odds are that count will have risen to 125 rockets.
To put things in context: one million Israelis is roughly 13 per cent of the population. Thirteen per cent of the UK population equates to about 8.4 million people, or the entire population of London.
A number of Israelis have already been injured, though thankfully without fatalities. The only reason more have not been hurt is because Israel has invested millions of dollars in bomb shelters and the Iron Dome defence system. Meanwhile, Hamas, whose very raison d’être is the destruction of Israel and which is recognised as a terrorist organisation both by the EU and UK, has invested millions of dollars in foreign aid into more rockets.
So, where is the outrage?
Since the beginning of this year, Gaza terrorists have fired more than 450 rockets on Israel, with about half of them coming since mid-June, when two Hamas terrorists kidnapped and brutally murdered three Israeli teenagers.
Why is it that a majority of the international community only notices when Israel undertakes its sovereign right, and obligation, to defend its citizens? Can you imagine if even one rocket was fired on London, Washington, Paris or Moscow? This is simply intolerable and no country can, or should, tolerate such attacks on its people.
Where is the outrage from the United Nations, which does not hesitate for a moment to call a “special emergency session” on the “Question of Palestine” or pass the umpteenth resolution blindly condemning Israel? But 24 hours after the rocket attacks on Israel started, I am still waiting for even one syllable of condemnation from the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly or the Human Rights Council.
Where is the EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who repeatedly slams Israel over settlement building, but is yet to say a word about the Palestinians firing over 120 rockets on Israeli civilians in one day? Even 10 Downing and the Foreign Office are yet to comment.
Where are all those so-called enlightened liberals, who continue to call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the Jewish State, but are silent in the face of Palestinian terror against Jews?
Where are all the human rights organisations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and Oxfam, who do not waste a single opportunity to condemn Israel for human rights violations against the Palestinians? Are the human rights of Israelis not equally important? Or is Jewish blood really that cheap?
Where is the outrage from the mainstream media? Instead, news organisation like the BBC, lead their stories about the rocket attacks headlines like ‘Israel launches new air strikes on Gaza Strip’ and not ‘Palestinian Terrorists in Gaza Rain Down Over 120 Rockets Against 1 million Israelis in 24 hours.’
Where is the outage that Iran, which the international community is currently negotiating with over their nuclear weapons program, and which has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, is the primary funder and supplier of arms to Hamas?
Where is the outage that civilians across southern Israel are being instructed not to send their kids to school and stay in bomb shelters, or that 24 prematurely born babies and 34 newborns had to be moved last night to a protected area in Soroka Hospital in Be’er Sheva, due to the rocket attacks from Gaza?
What sort of inhumane way is that for children to live?
Where is the outrage that the very same Hamas now responsible for the rocket fire against millions of Israelis, was only a month ago welcomed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, our so-called ‘partner for peace’ into his unity government, while the international community, including the EU, rushed to embrace it?
As I conclude, another two rockets were just fired from Gaza. So again, I ask: where is the outrage?
Arsen Ostrovsky is an international human rights activist and freelance journalist living in Israel.
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