This story won’t get international play until there’s an incident between Gaza fishermen and the Israeli Navy, but apparently Hamas has found a new set of Palestinian human shields. Those explosive-filled barrels that have been washing ashore in Israel are coming from Hamas boats disguised as fishing vessels, all but guaranteeing a miscalculation that will drag in Palestinian civilians:
Barrels filled with explosives sent by terror organizations from Gaza are putting Palestinian fishermen in danger, a senior Navy official estimated Tuesday following the discovery of explosive devices off Israel’s southern shores… “The terror organizations often use innocent-looking fishing boats in order to carry out attacks, making things very difficult for us. On the one hand, we would like to allow Palestinian fishery, but on the other hand, it’s our duty to thwart attacks. This leads to serious inner conflicts.”
And when Palestinian fishermen do get tangled up in an Israeli anti-terror operation, you can be quite sure that Israel will get the blame. Because per the rules codified by the Goldstone Report, normal reasoning like “the people who use human shields are responsible for their deaths” doesn’t apply when the Jewish State is defending its civilians.
Of course Israel will end up getting demonized for this even without a live fire incident. If Hamas is going to use Gaza fishing to turn the Mediterranean into a minefield, Israel will have to restrict Gaza fishing to prevent the Mediterranean from being turned into a minefield. The headlines about Israelis starving Gazans will follow shortly thereafter, just like they did after Israel shut down the border crossings that Hamas kept spraying with gunfire. Those headlines were false back then and will be false the next time around. But whatever.
Hamas is only throwing explosives off fishing boats because they can’t launch attacks out of Gaza any other way. The security fence that surrounds their little terror statelet has limited them to a grand total of one successful suicide bomber in the last few years. All of which is weird because the foreign policy experts who tried to block Israel’s West Bank security barrier assured us that fences don’t work.
References:
* Militants pledge to float more bombs toward Israel [WaPo]
* IDF source: Gaza fishermen in danger [YNet]
* Deputy IDF chief: Terror groups facing difficulties [YNet]
* Main terrorist attacks carried out at Gaza Strip crossings [Israel MFA]
* Gaza’s Booming Economy – Underground Mall System, Hundreds Of Supermarkets, Latest Fashions (Plus: New Gaza Tunnel Wasn’t For Smuggling) [MR]
Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy
* Israel
* Palestinians
