3 November 2023

Letter to the Editors

From Victor Gallant with reference to Issue 361

Dear Sirs

I totally disagree with Don Urquhart about the Israel-Hamas War.

Hamas attacked and butchered 1400 people in the most brutal way on October 7 and kidnapped over 200.  The overwhelming majority were civilians, including 240 young people attending a concert.  No country could fail to respond vigorously to such atrocities.  Hamas has created a vast network of tunnels in Gaza with headquarters under the largest hospital in Gaza.  It is, unfortunately, inevitable that in these circumstances there will be significant civilian casualties.  When Israel withdrew from Gaza it hoped to live in peace with the inhabitants of Gaza.  However, once Hamas took over, it became the source of repeated rocket attacks on Israeli civilians nearby and more recently as far as Tel Aviv and beyond.  Hamas is committed to the destruction of the State of Israel and its inhabitants.  This is so that Palestine will be ‘free’ from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea.  This ‘freedom’ which they seek would turn the area into a state like Iran, the sponsors of Hamas, Hezbollah and worldwide terrorism, with no freedom at all for their own women or LGBT people, Christians or even Muslims who do not share their perverted brand of Islamism.  Israel has no option other than to make every effort to eliminate Hamas, if it is not to continue to be attacked repeatedly for the foreseeable future.  Israel has tried limited responses to these attacks for many years but we now see the tragic outcome of this policy of relative restraint.

Regards

Victor Gallant