The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has once again triggered a series of events leading to the deaths of children and innocent civilians – this time, an attack on an area including a UN school that has left 15 people dead. After a third discovery of Hamas rockets in a UN school this week, the White House nonetheless condemned the attack.
According to the Associated Press, the White House did not go so far as to explicitly condemn Israel for the aftermath of the attack, but instead condemned the shelling of the area – from which the IDF had credible evidence to believe Hamas was firing rockets into Israel. The shelling itself, according to Palestinians, was an offensive IDF action, though the IDF has explained that it had reason to believe the area was being used as a base from which to attack Israel. The White House said in a statement it was “extremely concerned” with Palestinians not having their safety guaranteed in UN buildings without any mention of the safety of Israelis affected by the use of UN headquarters to house weaponry.
Previously Wednesday, the United Nations itself objected to Israel’s incursion into Gaza, with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon calling the attack “outrageous,” but not mentioning the use of UN schools to hide rockets and the extremely overt call on Hamas’s part for Palestinians to serve as human shields.
Overt condemnations of Israel by the United States government have happened before – even President Ronald Reagan condemned the Israeli attack of a nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981. However, under the Obama administration, it has increasingly appeared over the years that such statements are not isolated incidents of condemnation, but attempts to prevent Israel from fully realizing itself or ensuring the security of its citizens. The Obama administration has not only condemned attacks but also the construction of residential areas for Israel citizens on three occasions.
During the current operation in Gaza, the Obama administration has repeatedly called for ceasefires when it has been abundantly clear that Hamas would not agree to such a thing, thus demanding in essence that Israel stop defending itself from rocket attacks that threaten areas as far from Gaza as Tel Aviv. The Obama administration, and Secretary of State John Kerry in particular, have triggered a flurry of criticism from Israeli officials that appear to now merely hope that Obama will go away.
Those Israeli officials have a job to do, and ridding UN buildings of terrorist activity is paramount on that list of duties. Wednesday – the same day the United States condemned an attempt to rid a UN building of Gaza terrorists – three IDF soldiers were killed entering a UN building that Hamas terrorists booby-trapped specifically to kill Israelis. Rocket arsenals have been found in three separate UN schools, not just office buildings, and it all appears to be part of a plan: the IDF has found Hamas manuals that explicitly instruct terrorists to use hospitals and schools to hide weapons.
Infiltrating these areas and ridding them of terrorist elements is, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said, the only way to end violence in the region, and the only end that Israel sees fit for this kinetic operation. The United States, as a longtime committed ally to Israel, should support such an endeavor. The global health of American moral ideals does not benefit from the strength of Hamas. Yet time and again the Obama administration has chosen the path of least resistance before the international community, choosing to harangue Israel on peace rather than silence the shouts of war from Hamas.
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