Over the past seven days Hamas, an Iranian funded and supplied terrorist organization, has fired 3000 rockets at civilian targets in Israel. A number of Israeli citizens have been killed, but thousands of deaths are being prevented because of the country's Iron Dome defense system, which is funded by the United States.
The ???????? partnership has saved countless lives this week. Thank you U.S.! #IronDome
— Alon Ushpiz (@AlonUshpiz) May 16, 2021
[?? Yonatan Kelerman] pic.twitter.com/xe5DlHxLED
Members of the leftist media have taken notice and instead of roundly condemning Hamas for sending rockets, they're condemning the use of the Iron Dome.
First, from The Washington Post:
Iron Dome up to this point has saved Israeli lives from Gaza rocket attacks, while enabling air campaigns against Palestinian citizens. But the reduced pressure to resolve the conflict with Gaza also means Iron Dome gives Israelis a false sense of security, based on technological success — which isn’t guaranteed forever — rather than political solutions.
Israel isn't waging "air campaigns against Palestinian citizens." The Israeli Defense Forces are waging a campaign on Hamas terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip. In order to prevent civilian casualties, IDF warns of Hamas building strikes ahead of time, where civilians are used as human shields, to avoid casualties. It is true that the Iron Dome prevents Israeli deaths from Hamas rockets, but it also gives Israel some room to prevent an immediate and overwhelming response from IDF forces.
Actually, yeah. Without Iron Dome, Gaza would’ve been smashed into dust by now. pic.twitter.com/QKAc0yQqdz
— David Reaboi (@davereaboi) May 16, 2021
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And here's a nice flashback to Vox in 2014 when Israel launched Operation Protective Edge after Hamas kidnapped Israeli children through a tunnel from Gaza, murdered them and fired a barrage of rockets into the country:
Yes, Gaza militants hide rockets in schools, but Israel doesn't have to bomb them
A United Nations agency dedicated to helping Palestinians discovered 20 rockets hidden in one of its Gaza Strip schools on Wednesday, according to an alarmed press release from the agency. Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas dominate Gaza and use rockets as a tool to terrorize nearby Israelis.
"This is a flagrant violation of the inviolability of its premises under international law," said the release from the agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). "This incident, which is the first of its kind in Gaza, endangered civilians including staff and put at risk UNRWA's vital mission to assist and protect Palestine refugees in Gaza."
None of these speaks well of militant groups or the effects of their rocket campaigns on Palestinian civilians. It is not a great secret that "resistance" campaigns by groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad bring far greater harm to Palestinian civilians than they do anything resembling liberation, but this incident is a small glimpse of how, and of the effects of militant groups firing hundreds of rockets into Israel from densely populated neighborhoods in Gaza.
Here's the thing, though: while incidents like this force Israel to decide between bombing civilian structures or allowing Hamas to use those structures as rocket storage depots, it does not actually force Israel to choose to bomb civilian buildings. It is entirely within Israel's power to not bomb civilian buildings.
Here's the response to this line of argumentation:
When people say, "Oh, but you have the Iron Dome to protect you," the not-so-subtle implication is that Israelis should apologize for not dying more.
— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) May 16, 2021
We won't be doing that.
The days in which Jews died because they had no one to protect them are over.
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