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In Gaza, Israel blinded by Hamas

Many Israelis support the Israel Defense Forces' air attacks on Gaza, unaware that the majority of Gaza residents do not seek the destruction of Israel, and that several young people even condemn the Hamas rule of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli security personnel look at a window damaged by shrapnel after a short-range rocket landed on Tuesday near the Erez crossing July 16, 2014. An Israeli civilian was killed by the rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the military said, the first Israeli fatality in more than a week of fighting with Palestinian militants. The Islamist group Hamas that rules Gaza claimed responsibility for launching the short-range rocket that struck an area along the border with Gaza. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly (I
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My colleague Ben Caspit complained here on July 11 that Israel does not aspire to bring Hamas down. A senior political figure told him, “The vacuum that will be created [by the collapse of Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip] will turn into a magnet for a more radical organization.” That is why Israel is striking at Hamas with one hand, while providing Gaza with electricity, water and vital staples with the other.

Caspit believes that this is a “totally insane situation.” According to him, not a country in the world would accept “a routinely nonstop, low-keyed trickle of rockets and mortar shells on its southern towns and communities.” It was in this spirit that he wrote in the weekend supplement of Maariv on July 14, pointing out to the Israeli reader, that, “The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] should go in and finish the job.” After reading that, one might mistakenly believe that it all started when the leaders of the "Hamas-Gaza land" woke up on the wrong side of the bed last week and decided to clear out their stockpile of missiles by firing them at Israeli civilians, just like that, because the missile is the messenger.

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