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Read other letters about this article
Israel’s excuse for its violence is that from time to time Hamas fires off rockets into Israel to protest the ghetto life that Israel imposes on Gazans. The rockets are ineffectual for the most part and seldom claim Israeli casualties. However, the real purpose for the Israeli attack is to destroy Hamas.
In 2006 the US insisted that the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank hold free elections. When free elections were held, Hamas won. This was unacceptable to the Americans and Israelis. In the West Bank, the Americans and Israelis imposed a puppet government, but Hamas held on in Gaza. After unheeded warnings to the Gazans to rid themselves of Hamas and accept a puppet government, Israel has decided to destroy the freely elected government with violence.
1-4 million people are crammed into a 139 sqm ghetto, living in squalor and uter hopelessness. The Israelis have blockaded Gaza from all directions, in attempt to topple Hamas. Repulsive as Hamas is, mostly due to its militant religious ideology, it's doing what any resistance movement would do anywhere in the world. It's fighting against a much more powerful foe, equipped with the most sophisticated military hardware in the world, with primitive rockets. The Hamas position isn't irrational:as long as the residents of Gaza live like rats and are treated like rats, why should the residents of Ashdod or Be'er Sheba have any peace?
