The Kangaroo Court

Israeli soldiers, their officers, and political leaders may be subjected to criminal jeopardy for their actions in Gaza. Literally thousands of rockets and mortar bombs were fired at the innocent civilian populace of Israel after Israel voluntarily relinquished control of the Strip to give Palestinians the chance to build the institutions of statehood. The international community pledged to monitor the Gaza Strip border with Egypt to ensure that arms smuggling did not take place. The monitors were unarmed and were soon chased away by gunmen. The United Nations did not call for General Assembly measures or Security Council resolutions to condemn or reverse the smuggling that began apace. World bodies and large numbers of NGOs did not rise in protest as Kassams began to fly. Each one of these rockets was intended to kill, and by miracle, the actual number of casualties and deaths these attacks produced remained astoundingly low. But the situation, starting in the border community of Sderot and expanding outward, deeper into Israel, became intolerable with rockets, mortars, and Grad or Katusya-type missiles, no doubt supplied by Iran, threatening and disrupting the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis, including Bedouin, Druse, and Israeli Arabs. The Hamas terrorists chased out the Palestinian Authority security apparatus that had been established under international auspices with the consent of Israel and America's blessing to help facilitate transition of Gaza into the incubator of the nascent Palestinian state. Hamas with inspiration, training, and material support from the troublemakers of the Islamic Republic of Iran, murdered many of their brethren who supported Abbas and felt that by following Abu Mazen, they were on the path to statehood. Hamas and Iran are extinguishing that hope. Even when Hamas used explosives to blow huge gaps in the Egyptian border wall and fences to allow even more smuggling, the world did not shout its outrage, even though it was obvious that weapons and weapon components were being brought into Gaza by the ton. These munitions were clearly intended to make life unlivable, childhoods unbearable, and habitation impossible, anywhere in Israel within the range of fire. Now, after Israel exercised so much patience and restraint that she appeared weak, and finally had to respond to the staggered rocket launches that did not permit a moment's peace, the Roman Catholic Church, the United Nations, the leaders of other nations, and the world's media all rush to damn Israel. The Cardinal responsible for the Vatican Office of Peace and Justice actually had the gall to declare, "Israel has established the largest concentration camp in the history of the world in Gaza." It would behoove the Cardinal to get his facts straight, the rocketeers of Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees and Islamic Jihad built the wall and through their unrelenting campaign of terror against Israel, threw away the key. The Vatican, which also reversed the excommunication (for unrelated matters) of Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson, perpetrated the Inquisition, stood by largely silent through the Shoah, and then helped real war criminals-the Nazi perpetrators of genocide escape justice by facilitating their concealing identities and fleeing Europe, has no moral authority to criticize Israel's act of self-defense. Israel bent over backwards to avoid killing the non-combatants that Hamas was deliberately using as human shields. It is only natural in so many areas of the globe that have done everything they could to rid themselves of Jewish presence that they would embrace anything they could to justify their hatreds and put it to the young men of the IDF any chance they get. It is imperative that people of goodwill don't let them.