Re: Prince George Citizen: Gwynne Dyer: "No angle but wasted lives" (Nov. 22, 2012, Page 6)
I take serious issue with Gwynne Dyer's claim that Hamas's and other Palestinian terror groups shoot only "futile rockets" at Israeli civilians. Futile is defined as "serving no useful purpose : completely ineffective" and yet, since 2006, 44 Israelis have been killed and hundreds have been wounded in these terrorist attacks. Hamas's deadly rocket arsenal consists of long-range rockets like the Fajr-5 which has a 90-kg payload with a range of 75 km putting 3.5 million civilians at threat. Heavily populated Israeli cities like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are now under daily threat.
This year alone, more than 1,600 deadly rockets have been fired at Israeli cities from Hamas-held Gaza Strip. Since 2001, more than 12,800 rockets and mortars (that's an average of 3 attacks every single day), have landed in Israel.
How dare Mr. Dyer quip that: "Even if they kill a few Israelis, so what?" That a Canadian columnist would show such a callous disregard for Israeli lives is appalling. What Mr. Dyer cannot appreciate is that Israelis love life and Hamas encourages a culture of "martyrdom" and death. Israel painfully takes every effort to protect its citizens from terror and to avoid civilian casualties. In sharp contrast, Hamas commits double war crimes by hiding behind Palestinian civilian populations while firing at Israeli civilians.
As Richard Kemp, the former commander of the British armed forces in Afghanistan once told the United Nations: "The Israel Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare."
Mike Fegelman, Executive Director
HonestReporting Canada
