Article Re: Recent Editorial Criticizing Candidates Visiting Israel
In these difficult times, when the State of Israel has been under siege from numerous quarters for defending herself from Hamas and PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) terrorists’ thousands of rocket attacks on innocent Israeli civilians, and Hamas’s cousin the Islamic State is fanning across the Middle East slaughtering Christians and Yazidis and American journalists, it has been refreshing to see the outpouring of solidarity visits to Israel and pro-Israel statements from New York politicians – including: Congressional candidates: Grant Lally (R), Rep. Steve Israel (D), Bruce Blakeman (R), and Kathleen Rice (D), Gov. Cuomo (D), state Sen. Jack Martins (R), Sen. Jeffrey Klein (R), Sen. Dean Skelos (R), Adam Haber (D) and Speaker Sheldon Silver (D). (Please forgive me for not listing everyone who should be listed here.)Sadly, however, an editorial appeared in this newspaper the week before last, criticizing the political candidates and officials from both political parties who recently visited and/or spoke up in support for the State of Israel.
The editorial absurdly complained that these politicians did not also visit Gaza to hear some purported “other side of the story.”
First, the truth doesn’t have two “sides of the story” here.
The truth is that Hamas’s Charter calls for the murder of every Jew, and Hamas leaders frequently proclaim that Israel and every Jew must be annihilated. The truth is that Hamas launched 15,000 rockets at innocent Israeli civilians prior to mid-July, and almost 4,000 rockets at innocent Israeli population centers since then. (As a result of Hamas’s launching of hundreds of rockets per day lately, those numbers kept increasing following my previous letter to this newspaper two weeks ago.)
A few days ago (Aug. 22), Hamas launched rockets (from rocket launchers located in a Gaza refuge) that murdered another innocent little Israeli toddler, an adorable 4-year-old boy who was named Daniel Tragerman, who lived in a farming village in southern Israel. Daniel’s heartbroken parents were unable to get him to the bomb shelter fast enough this time, and he ended up dying from shrapnel wounds from a Hamas missile.
The truth is that Israel has defended itself while doing everything humanly possible to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, in a careful manner unprecedented in the history of warfare.
Israel also sends Gaza thousands of truckloads of food and humanitarian supplies, provides Gaza with electricity, ferries Gazans who are ill to Israeli and Turkish hospitals (whichever the patient prefers), and even offered to collect Israeli blood to send to Gaza – all while Hamas continues attacking Israel via tunnels and rockets.
The truth is that if Hamas and its collaborators (including Fatah) would stop launching rockets, glorifying terror against Jews, and spending multi-millions of dollars building terror tunnels to inflict mass casualties on innocent Israelis, Israel would not be forced to defend her people.
Second, it is ridiculous to condemn politicians who do not visit Gaza – in light of the pertinent facts that it is unlawful for U.S. government personnel to visit Gaza, and that Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Hamas has been continuously listed on the U.S. State Department’s list of designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations since 1987. This designation means that Hamas’s terrorist activities threaten U.S. nationals or U.S. national security. The European Union, Canada and Egypt have all also designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
The U.S. State Department website contains this clear prohibition : “U.S. government personnel are not permitted to conduct official or personal travel to the Gaza Strip.”
In addition to forbidding all U.S. government personnel from traveling to Gaza, the U.S. State Department warns against all other travel to Gaza in the strongest possible terms.
The warning is with good reason, given Hamas’s propensity for violence towards “visitors” and its own people (as well as against innocent Israelis). This past Friday (August 22), Hamas summarily executed 18 Palestinians (including at least 2 women) for allegedly being informers, without even giving many of the doomed Palestinian suspects the courtesy of a show trial. And this is only one of many such incidents.
Moreover, Gaza is like the proverbial “roach motel”: Hamas does not permit visitors to check out easily – and the U.S. government can do little or nothing to help.
The U.S. State Department website explains: “The Department of State strongly urges U.S. citizens to avoid all travel to the Gaza Strip, which is under the control of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization. U.S. citizens in Gaza are advised to depart immediately. The security environment within Gaza, including its border with Egypt and its seacoast, is dangerous and volatile . . . . [T]hose entering the Gaza Strip may not be able to depart at a time of their choosing. Many U.S. citizens have been unable to exit Gaza or faced lengthy delays in doing so. Furthermore, the schedule and requirements for exiting through the Rafah crossing are unpredictable and can involve significant expense. Because U.S. citizen employees of the U.S. government are not allowed to enter the Gaza Strip or have contact with Hamas, the ability of consular staff to offer timely assistance to U.S. citizens, including assistance departing Gaza, is extremely limited.”
The fact that Americans risk life and limb when they are in the company of foreign terrorist groups was vividly evidenced recently when the Islamic State beheaded two American journalists.
Local politicians may not be the most popular kids on the block with this newspaper, but does this newspaper really expect them to defy the State Department travel ban in order to place themselves at the mercy of genocidal Islamic terrorist organizations?
Even Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi has not stepped foot in Gaza (despite the fact that, incredibly, Pelosi initially referred to Hamas as a “humanitarian organization” on CBS’s “Face the Nation” last month, and Pelosi violated a U.S. travel ban to travel to Syria to confer with Assad in 2007).
Third, even if local politicians could somehow visit Gaza legally and were willing to ignore the security risks, Hamas would not permit the politicians to fully observe and report what is going on in Gaza.
Hamas isn’t going to give American politicians tours of its Gaza terror tunnels – especially since Hamas executed many of its tunnel diggers so that they would not reveal the tunnels’ locations. The place to see Hamas’s terror tunnels is Israel; During their recent solidarity visit to Israel, a delegation that included Gov. Cuomo, Republican state Senate Majority Co-Leaders Jeffrey Klein and Dean Skelos, and Democrat state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver visited one of the sophisticated miles-long tunnels that Hamas had built into Israel (complete with phone and electric lines), which Israel had recently uncovered and decommissioned.
Nor is Hamas going to allow American politicians into its headquarters under Shifa hospital, or into its missile rooms in private homes and schools – especially since foreign journalists are threatened with bodily harm if they are tempted to report such things.
Hamas’s treatment of foreign reporters is instructive regarding what really goes on in Gaza – and the types of stories that come out from there. The Foreign Press Association recently issued a formal protest “protest[ing] in the strongest terms the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza.”
The FPA noted that Hamas “harassed, threatened or questioned” foreign reporters working in Gaza. Norwegian journalist Paul Jørgensen also recently confirmed Hamas’ “strict orders” not to document Hamas’s violence.
Hamas spokeswoman Isra Al-Mudallal, head of foreign relations in the Hamas Information Ministry, even admitted on Lebanon’s satellite TV that Hamas interrogated and deported journalists who filmed missile launch sites if the journalists refused to change their stories. Hamas instructs reporters not to show rocket launching sites or armed, masked Hamas operatives, or else their Facebook pages will be closed for “incitement to violence.”
After leaving Gaza, a Spanish journalist revealed why footage of Hamas in action is absent: “It’s very simple. We did see Hamas people there, launching rockets. They were close to our hotel, but if ever we dared pointing our camera on them, they would simply shoot at us and kill us.” Italian reporter Gabriele Barbati confirmed that Israel told the truth that Hamas rockets caused the Al-Shati refugee camp deaths (which Hamas lies blamed on Israel) only when he was out of Gaza, beyond the reach of Hamas retaliation.
And French-Palestinian journalist Radjaa Abu Dagga wrote that Hamas forcibly blocked him from leaving Gaza, detained and interrogated him in a room in Shifa hospital. He then asked to have his newspaper account removed for fear of Hamas retaliation.
Sadly, despite the brave reports of journalists who are no longer in Hamas’s clutches, this newspaper has apparently fallen for the Hamas propaganda resulting from Hamas’s “blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods” of dealing with reporters.
Fourth, it was offensive for the editorial to derisively characterize the debates between two local Congressional candidates as an “exploitative competition” as to who supports the State of Israel more.
Debates and competition on foreign policy and other issues are what good elections are all about. (Bad elections are the ones that deteriorate into personal mudslinging contests.) Is a debate between candidates on tax policy, the environment, immigration or global trade also an “exploitative competition”?
Voters want to know where both candidates stand on the full panoply of Middle East and other topics, and it is praiseworthy that the candidates are addressing and debating these issues. I hope that in the future, that this newspaper will encourage these important issues-oriented debates.
Elizabeth (Liz) Berney, Esq.
Zionist Organization of America, director of special projects & Long Island-Queens Executive Director (liz@zoa.org)
