Rationalist Judaism: Gaza in Ten Points; Posted by Rabbi Natan Slifkin

Here is a compact list of ten points that tells you everything you need to know about the current conflict. Please share it with those who would benefit from it. 

1. Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip in 2005, forcibly removing its citizens, and leaving a multimillion dollar greenhouseagriculture industry for Palestinian economic development. The Gazans destroyed the greenhouses and voted Hamas into power, which promptly murdered its political rivals.

2. Hamas, sworn to the annihilation of Israel, has fired thousandsof rockets into Israel, which are aimed at causing the maximum number of civilian deaths.

3. Hundreds of thousands of tons of cement and concrete were sent into Gaza as foreign aid for humanitarian purposes, such as for building homes and bomb shelters. Hamas used this to buildterror tunnels for infiltrating into Israel and launching terrorist attacks.

4. Hamas' rockets aimed and fired at Israel's civilian airport have now caused all airlines (except El Al) to cease flying to Israel.

5. What does the world expect Israel to do? Sit back while rockets paralyze the country and shut down the airport, and wait for terrorists to enter through tunnels in order to target and massacre civilians?

6. As any country would do, Israel has attempted to destroy the rocket launchers and terrorists and terror tunnels.

7. In every war, there are civilian casualties. The US, Britain, and other NATO forces have caused tens of thousands of civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

8. Israel has gone far beyond the US and UK in its attempts to minimize the number of collateral civilian deaths in this conflict, even to the extent of telling people in advance to evacuate areas that include military targets.

9. It is extremely difficult, however, to minimize civilian deaths, since Hamas deliberately fires rockets from civilian areas, including alongside schools and hospitals, and forces civilians to remain in these areas rather than to listen to Israel's warnings. Hamas is clearly and undeniably trying tomaximize the number of civilian casualties amongst Palestinians, while Israel is trying to minimizethem.

10. Thousands of Palestinians are dying under appalling cruelty inflicted upon them - in Syria. Yet nobody seems to care. This shows that what fuels the global support for Palestinians is not sympathy for Palestinians, but hatred of Jews.