Israel Defends Its Citizens...By Retaliating?

"Israel Keeps Up Assault On Gaza; Arab Anger Rises"
A1, Monday 12/29/08
By Taghreed El-Khodary and Isabel Kershner

"Israel said" its Gaza strikes "were in retaliation for sustained rocket fire from Gaza into its territory"? This is then just another game of tag, cat and mouse, another round in the senseless cycle of violence. This is the backgrounder offered readers on the front page of Monday's Times.

Of course, Israel's strikes aren't retaliatory, and it never said they were. Israel, by stating the immediate threat of Hamas rockets, has said that the strikes are preventive. The word choice is key. If Israel was guaranteed no more rockets or other attacks from Gaza, Israel would not be striking Gaza now.

Israel doesn't put the lives of its youth in jeopardy for revenge. First, this has not been the Israeli ethos and second, the Israeli public wouldn't allow it. Its leaders would be voted out. What prompted Israeli action was the prospect of more rockets, deadlier and with longer range, and only after eight years of limited and ultimately futile Israeli operations.

Eight paragraphs in, and only in the context of pointing to Israel's "strong push to justify the attacks," are readers informed that Israel says "it was forced into military action to defend its citizens". Later on, Olmert is reported as saying Israel's operation is meant to "restore normal life and quiet to residents of [southern Israel]." So is Israel "retaliating," or "defending its citizens"? Can it really be both?

Three additional problems:

1) "Gazans also use many of them [smuggling tunnels from Egypt] to import consumer goods and fuel in order to get around the Israeli-imposed economic blockade."

What's especially problematic about this statement is that it's true. Yet the reason for the blockade was rocket and mortar attacks not only into Israel, but at the actual border crossings. Even during the recent truce, the blockade was for a time lifted, only to be met with sporadic rocket fire from Gaza. What would've sufficed is a simple addendum:

"...to get around the Israeli economic blockade, imposed in response to rocket and mortar attacks into Israel."

2) While the strikes are described as "unleashing a furious reaction across the Arab world," and "raising fears of greater instability in the region," absent is a real sense of where Israel stands. We hear what's going on in Tehran, Damascus and Beirut, but not in Israel. Is the Israeli public divided? [an overwhelming majority support the operation.] Is the Israeli political spectrum divided? [Parties from Likud to Meretz support the operation.] If there were internal Israeli divisions, it's not a stretch to imagine a front page article posing these questions.

3) "An Egyptian brokered six-month truce between Israel and Hamas, always shaky, began to unravel in early November. It expired 10 days ago."

The piece ends with this, which omits plenty. Palestinian militants from Gaza fired rockets into Israel well before November. Hamas chose not to stop them. The "unraveling" in early November was Israel blowing up a tunnel into Israel which Hamas had built. The tunnel was identical to the one used in the abduction of Gilad Schalit. Hamas responded with more rockets.

Finally, before and after the truce expired, Hamas was outspoken in its refusal to renew it. In fact, in the days following the expiration of the truce, Hamas increased its rocket barrages into Israel. All of this would've made for an informative paragraph to end a piece ostensibly meant to provide background on Israel's strikes.