{"id":2376,"date":"2018-05-20T20:02:03","date_gmt":"2018-05-20T08:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/?p=2376"},"modified":"2018-07-01T20:15:59","modified_gmt":"2018-07-01T08:15:59","slug":"gaza-israel-and-nzs-moral-confusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/2018\/05\/gaza-israel-and-nzs-moral-confusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza, Israel, and NZ&#8217;s moral confusion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Gaza 2\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/270934511?h=16373cf632&dnt=1&app_id=122963\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This has been a distressing week for those who value justice and truth telling.<\/p>\n<p>The conflict on the Israel Gaza border has been portrayed as the wanton slaughter of peaceful civilian protesters by the Israeli army. Such a portrayal is dishonest.<\/p>\n<p>Gaza is under the control of Hamas, an internationally recognised terrorist entity. It has for years attempted to invade Israel.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>New Zealanders may be interested to learn that Hamas\u2019 aim, according to its own statements, is the killing of Israeli men, women and children. Mass murder and the destruction of Israel are its central goals.<\/p>\n<p>You don\u2019t need to take my word for it. A Hamas leader can be viewed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=klFbf6VG7uA\">online<\/a> declaring in Arabic, \u201c<i>We will take down the border and we will tear out their hearts from their bodies<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s step back for a moment for an overview of the situation: There are two parties to the present Gaza conflict. One party is explicitly genocidal and has shown itself willing to sacrifice its own women and children in order to score PR points. Its end goal is the massacre of the other party.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>As it happens, the other party operates a western style liberal democracy, much like our own, and values the lives of its citizens.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>And it is willing to use its army to prevent the penetration of its border by its genocidal opponent. The aforementioned army acts with restraint but resorts to lethal force when other measures have been exhausted. The army of any civilised and responsible nation would do likewise.<\/p>\n<p>Hamas wants the Jews dead. The Jews on the other hand wish to live and they will take reasonable steps to ensure that they continue to live.<\/p>\n<p>This is not morally complex. This is not a matter where right and wrong should be difficult to discern. But it is apparently beyond the ethical comprehension of some of our politicians, our media commentators and our UN representatives.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The death of Gazans is tragic but it is their own leaders who are directly responsible. Most of those who have died have been killed while acting on the explicit instructions of Hamas &#8211; to penetrate the border fence and to slaughter Israelis. And Hamas has readily acknowledged that the majority of those killed are their own militants.<\/p>\n<p>And yet it is Israel, not Hamas, that is censured by the NZ government.<\/p>\n<p>Media outlets that cooperate with Hamas&#8217; cynical strategy by issuing shamefully distorted reports condemning Israel while ignoring Hamas\u2019 responsibility, are themselves complicit in these deaths. By rewarding Hamas with such dishonest coverage they encourage further bloodshed.<\/p>\n<p>It is time to call out our media for its Hamas-supporting distortions and to demand truthful and balanced reporting.<\/p>\n<p>And our political leaders, whose analysis extends only to a body count while ignoring the genocidal intentions of Hamas and its sacrifice of its own people, really need to think a little more deeply.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[FB_IINZcomments]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This has been a distressing week for those who value justice and truth telling. The conflict on the Israel Gaza border has been portrayed as the wanton slaughter of peaceful civilian protesters by the Israeli army. Such a portrayal is dishonest. Gaza is under the control of Hamas, an internationally recognised terrorist entity. It has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[449,35,34,451,43],"tags":[72,349,19,93,28,51,112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2376"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2708,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376\/revisions\/2708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}