The War You Aren’t Seeing: A Clear-Sighted View

(Jerusalem, Israel) — Context matters. Nowhere is this more relevant than in the Middle East. 

Many Palestinians in conjunction with compliant and often dishonest media created a narrative that the recent massive exchange of rocket fire in Israel and Gaza was triggered by a dispute over several Palestinian homes in an eastern Jerusalem neighborhood called Sheikh Jarrah.

A bit of background: Jews had been living there for generations, but were all killed or exiled during the Jordanian invasion of 1948. The Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, dwelling there for generations themselves, always acknowledged that Jews came first, and the sides worked to coexist and find compromises, despite shared loss and pain.

This is a not an insignificant detail. Yet it has gotten lost in most of the reportage of the recent deadly conflict.

However, just when a peaceful compromise seemed possible — one that would allow the original Jewish residents to be restored their ownership while also allowing the current Palestinian residents to remain — the Palestinian Authority government threatened the Palestinian families should they agree to a deal with Israel, which led to drawn out (but not yet complete) eviction proceedings.

Ever seeking opportunities to sow discord, the PA used the story as a catalyst to incite violent protests at the Muslim holy site, the “Al Aqsa” Mosque. Hundreds of rioters threw explosive devices and rocks. Israeli police responded with non-lethal crowd control to protect the holy sites and those innocent Muslims who just wanted to pray.

Total casualties: zero.

By then Hamas began firing rockets indiscriminately at Jerusalem in an apparent bid to appear relevant. (Facts matter: Hamas is an internationally recognized terror organization that rules over Palestinians in the Gaza strip, and the PA had recently cancelled elections in which Hamas was predicted to make gains.)

In an ironic reversal from the common narrative, it was actually the IDF and its Iron Dome missile shield that was protecting Al Aqsa, while the Iranian-funded Hamas was placing the Mosque in the line of fire, along with Jewish and Christian holy sites, not to mention the city’s diverse population. Missiles then rocked other cities across Israel, including Tel Aviv, most often in areas with no military targets whatsoever. The barrage began last Monday, May 10.

Fact: Hamas Kills Palestinians

Here is a sobering statistic that somehow falls off the radar screen of the Middle East-obsessed public: hundreds of Hamas’ rockets and missiles fall short and land in Gaza. Indeed, on the first day of the conflict such a hit killed 17 people, including three children. Hundreds more fell subsequently, accounting for what appears to be most, if not all, of the Palestinian death toll.

This is a critical detail. Israel’s response: precision strikes on military facilities, preceded by advance warnings to evacuate. Hamas has yet to produce evidence that any Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli fire as opposed to Hamas’ own rockets. Meanwhile, as of press time, Hamas has fired some 3,400 rockets on Israel killing and maiming Israelis and Palestinians alike. Worse, Hamas fires these rockets from civilian areas – a double war crime: firing at civilians, from urban centers.

Truth matters. Nowhere is this more relevant than in the Middle East. If peace is the goal then we need to identify the warmongers.

War and Peace

In the complex milieu of the Middle East — with competing narratives, spin and the dust of social media storms —  it is difficult to understand what is going on. Let me suggest that what is tragically unfolding now is the story of ordinary people who felt each other’s pain and tried to make peace but were prevented from doing so by the Palestinian Authority government.  

Yes, this is also a story of war, but not the one that you think.  

It is a war of ordinary Palestinians and Israelis against a terror organization and a corrupt PA government, with each expending resources to oppress the Palestinian people, to attack Israelis, and to stop peace at all costs.  

The dramatic and deadly conflict in Israel and Gaza has rightly captured the attention of the entire world. We in Israel are used to losing the “hasbara” (PR) battle but right now recovering the truth is more important than salvaging Israel’s reputation on the world stage. 

Telling the truth about the origins of the current disaster — and the source of the deadly devastation — is critical if we want to believe in a peaceful resolution…and future.

It may seem a radical thing to say, but peace is not that hard: we just have to stop preventing it. More to the point, we need to correctly identify and stop those who are preventing it. When the Palestinian government pays money to fund terrorism through their $400M per year “Martyr’s Fund,” or threatens Palestinian people against coexisting with their Jewish neighbors, this is what creates war.

Our role, as a global community, is to strongly push terror groups to stop interfering with peace, and to give the people who so desperately want it a chance to achieve it.

We, as an international community, correctly understood this phenomenon in Syria, where ISIS was oppressing the Syrian people, and in Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda and the Taliban were oppressing the Afghani people. Hamas and the PA are not “the Palestinians” any more than ISIS can be called “the Syrian people.”  Palestinians and Israelis are victims of these groups. In the long run, all of us are. 

Let us commit to truth, context and clear-sightedness as we strive to return Israelis and Palestinians to even a tenuous state of immediate calm, and eventually to the true peace and coexistence that is absolutely achievable.  

Featured Image: By Laboo Studio via Shutterstock