The world should stop treating the Palestinians as small children with no responsibility - By Lior Ben-Ami

The world should stop treating the Palestinians as small children with no responsibility

All aid that was provided to improve the Palestinians' lives in Gaza, without exception, either disappeared, was destroyed, or used for terror (or all three). A partial list will follow. And nonetheless, some are still sure that if only Israel and the world gave them more, something would change. Israel left Gaza in 2005 and since then the situation has only deteriorated.

By Lior Ben-Ami
MidEastTruth.com
May 23, 2018

Warning, a very non-PC text ahead. Sensitive souls are invited to stop reading now.

I'm fed up.

Fed up that each time we see tons of Palestinians giving out candies, smiling, waving their hands in the air with joy and shooting firecrackers, after a terror attack with Israeli civilians killed, some kind souls in the west and Israel will say and write things like "What do you want from them? It's because they are under occupation! Look at what Israel's occupation has done. Look at what Israel has turned them into. And anyway, you shouldn't generalize." And these compassionate, understanding people don't really care that Israel completely left Gaza back in 2005 and that other sickening phenomena, even worse, can be seen throughout the region, often.

These same people who call not to generalize (although the Hamas and Islamic Jihad enjoy the support of most of Gaza residents, according to Khalil Shkaki's Center for Palestine Research and Studies' polls), are the first who will say, if they see a violent or rude Israeli yelling at a flight attendant, "Look what has happened in Israel! Look at what a violent society Israel has become!"

Fed up.

Schools in Gaza, including UNWRA's, have early dismissal in order to send all the schoolchildren to the March of Return, a march whose leaders have promised to murder all the Jews, remove their hearts and eat their livers. And the parents, at least those who have been interviewed with pride, are okay with it. Which parent sends his kids to a battlefield? And yet, hundreds of children participated in the riots. Forty thousand rioters. Molotov cocktails, explosive devices, knives, axes, burning kites. When Israel left Gaza in 2005, there were some of us who thought, here, now we see that the Palestinian Arabs can have a model autonomous entity. The world applauded. So did the international press. In "Haaretz," they told us about the great fish restaurants we would be able to eat at in Gaza, Shimon Peres ran around the world and fundraised millions of dollars for Gaza. There were plans to build top notch hotels and a fancy Riviera. Contributions flowed in from all over the world. Gaza could have become the Singapore of the Middle East.

Unfortunately, it didn't happen. A murderous organization rules Gaza, whose declared goal is to annihilate Israel. Hamas gained control over Gaza with force, as it threw its opponents from rooftops, shot them, tortured them, and dragged them, tied to motorcycles throughout the city. Even Abu Mazen, the president of the PA from Fatah who entered his 12th year of a four-year term (because he decided there would be no elections), can't enter Gaza.

And despite the declared goal of destroying Israel, despite shooting rockets, tunnels and terror attempts, Israel has provided Gaza with electricity and humanitarian assistance on a daily basis. The funds of the assistance, huge amounts of money contributed from all over the world, are not directed towards the wellbeing of Gaza's residents, but rather, to development and construction of rockets and digging of tunnels which include unbelievable amounts of cement, which could have been used to build schools, hospitals and more. Moreover, Hamas refuses to have trucks with humanitarian aid and in recent events, rioters burned the gas pipes to Gaza and the conveyer belts for bringing aid in. When there was an airport in Gaza, it was used to bring guns and rockets were fired from it. In addition, ammunition was smuggled through the sea via ships.

It should be emphasized that all aid that was provided to improve the Palestinians' lives in Gaza, without exception, either disappeared, was destroyed, or used for terror (or all three).

For example:

• When Israel left Gaza, the Palestinians received millions in donations. In addition, Israel left flourishing greenhouses which economically sustained many Israeli families, and could have become a thriving agricultural industry in Gaza. The contributions were diverted for developing and creating rockets and digging tunnels (using the concrete which went in for the purpose of construction), and filled the bank accounts of Hamas leaders. The greenhouses were ruined.

• The airport in Gaza was used to smuggle weapons and afterwards for shooting rockets from within its confines.

• The football field was transformed into a rocket launch pad.

• Ships tried to smuggle in tremendous amounts of ammunition, from Iran and Sudan.

• The crossing point for transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza was destroyed and burned repeatedly by Hamas, and repaired repeatedly by Israel, at her expense.

• The pipes for transferring gas to Gaza were set on fire repeatedly by Hamas. Tens of millions of dollars worth of damage were incurred.

• The power generator which provides electricity to Gaza was bombed by Hamas.

• Schools under the auspices and funding of the EU and the UN became institutions for anti-Semitic brainwashing of children, whose biggest dream is to become shahids, and for launching rockets, in the knowledge that if Israel responds, it will be blamed for firing on schools.

• Hospitals were transformed into safe havens for Hamas leaders, and rocket launch pads, for the same reason.

And after all this, Israel is blamed for turning Gaza into a "prison."

We can go on with more examples, but people who have lost all morality and conscience, won't change their minds. For them, Israel's government is guilty. If we only gave them an island with a port, a floating cloud with high tech firms, a farm to raise unicorns, or God knows what, they would suddenly take care of them and not try to bomb them or blow them up, as they have done to anything else which could have improved the lives of people in Gaza.

In recent events on the international border, the rioters were armed by the Hamas leaders with aerial photos and access roads to Israeli towns, in order to do massive attacks. They also used pipe bombs. It is not a theoretical discussion. If the fence had been massively damaged, thousands of people would have been able to storm through, which would have led to an even bigger disaster in Israel, and many more Palestinians killed.

And in the end the IDF, whose soldiers do everything in order to minimalize killing -- when at the same time Hamas tries to maximize the number of killed and use its citizens, including women and children, as human shields -- is accused of using "disproportionate force" and "indiscriminate shooting."

Fed up.

And then you read the post of someone from the press, who writes something like, "Its all because Israel left Gaza without an accord. Look, see, with Egypt and Jordan there was an agreement, and the border is still quiet."

Yeah right. Of course, because if we had had an agreement with the Fatah, the Hamas leaders would have said, "Oh, there's an agreement! Then we can't do a violent takeover, throw Fatah people from the buildings, torture our opponents or drag them via motorcycles. There's an agreement," and they would have immediately opened their farms to raise unicorns and turned Gaza into the Narnia of the Middle East.

I suggest reviewing the list of supporters of the unilateral disengagement in the Israeli left and the West. At the time, I thought they were right. They were wrong.

They said it before, before me. It doesn't matter. Not all cultures are equal.

Decades before Israel was founded, when the Hebrew community in the land of Israel had far less control over its fate than the Palestinians do in Judea and Samaria, and even more so in Gaza, leaders of the community initiated and founded great institutions: sick funds (Kupat Holim), the Weizmann Institute, the Technion, the Hebrew University, the Bezalel art school, the Philharmonic Orchestra, the Habima Theatre, the Ohel theatre, the Matate theatre, and more, institutions and infrastructure for public good. Even before the state was founded, the National Water Carrier was established, Pinchas Rotenberg formed the power station, and Solel Bone built neighborhoods and planned roads. Private entrepreneurs built firms before the state was founded as well, in the field of food, construction and more.

Where is the Palestinian Bezalel? Where is the Palestinian Weizmann institute?

Unfortunately, the Palestinians, who as we have said enjoy a much great freedom – parliament, armed police, government offices, embassies all over the world –and receive contributions from everywhere, choose to invest almost all their resources in creating bombs and rockets, digging attack tunnels, which are built with cement that has been smuggled through the Gaza strip, publishing wild incitement materials in their books and paying salaries to murderers in the west bank. The refugee camps remain pathetic. They photograph well and help build sympathy in the world and raise funds. In addition, dozens if not hundreds of millions of dollars reach PA leadership bank accounts around the world. In the past, Arafat became a millionaire, and today it's Abbas, with his mansions, and the Fatah and Hamas leaders who enjoy a lifestyle of millionaires as their people suffer from their reign, much more than anything they suffered under the Zionist reign ever: mass shootings of opposition leaders, throwing them off roofs of buildings, torturing journalists who dare to criticize the regime, hanging, tying them to motorcycles and dragging them throughout the town, repressing Christians, gays and women. And there is always someone to blame. It's the "occupation!"

I repeat myself, I know.

So, no. It's not the "occupation." It happens throughout the Middle East. It's the culture.

Doesn't sound very politically correct, right? But it's true.

The Arab Palestinians were offered an independent state in 1937 and 1947. They refused because they opposed the existence of a neighboring Jewish state. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel offered to negotiate land for peace. The Arab states answered with the infamous "Three No's of Khartoum." In 1991, Israel participated in the Madrid peace Conference. In 1993 the Oslo accords were signed. The Palestinians repeatedly said "No" when offered a state – to Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak in 2000, and to Ehud Olmert, who offered 100% of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 2007. Abbas' answer to Olmert's offer says it all: "I can't tell 4 million Palestinian refugees that only 5,000 of them can go back to their homes." They don't want an independent state. They want to destroy Israel.

What will happen?

In the 1980s and 1990s, I too thought that everything depended on Israel. That if we would just begin negotiation and be willing to compromise and divide the land, we could reach peace with two nation sates.

Today, after Clinton and Barak's offers, and especially after the Gaza disengagement, Olmert's offer and Abbas' response, in my opinion, the conflict's resolution is no longer dependent on Israel. As long as most of the Palestinians in Gaza support a murderous terrorist organization which seeks to destroy Israel and commit genocide, and repeatedly attacks her, the violent conflict will continue. There will be quieter times, there will be operations, there will be attacks. Israel will continue to move forward, develop and flourish, defending its citizens and borders.

Israel should do everything it can to calm the situation, and to help and assist the civil population in Gaza, but whatever action Israel takes will not stop the fire and blood. As long as Hamas maintains its declared mission statement of destroying Israel; as long as the world keeps treating the Palestinians like small children with no responsibility for their actions, and blaming Israel for Hamas' crimes, nothing will change. In parallel, we must work with Egypt, which also has a border with Gaza and can help improve the lives of the residents there.