Madam, - From its first sentence, your Editorial "Stalemate on Gaza" (March 4th) demonstrates a lack of fairness towards Israel and its efforts to defend its citizens from the rocket attacks emanating from Gaza. The use of the word "brutal" to characterise only Israel's intervention seems designed to prejudice the reader's response from the start. No similar word is used to describe the Hamas rocket attacks; the harshest term you can find for them is "provocation".
This one-sided reading of events is reinforced when you minimise the effects of the rockets on Israel ("three Israelis have died") while inflating the sufferings of the other side ("hundreds of Palestinians killed or wounded").
Condemnation can thus be reserved for the Israeli actions as "utterly disproportionate", while you are unable to spare a word of condemnation for the non-stop barrage of more than 1,000 rockets and 937 mortar bombs fired from Gaza at the 20,000 civilians of the town of Sderot since the Hamas takeover last June (425 such attacks have occurred so far this year), and the 120,000 civilians of the city of Ashkelon. Furthermore, the use by Hamas of longer-range GRAD rockets demonstrates Hamas's intent to strike targets deeper inside Israel.
That the Israeli death toll has so far been small is no thanks to the terrorists who fire the rockets, for whom every Israeli civilian is a military target. Only a well-organised system of shelters, warning systems and sheer good luck have prevented far more deaths. A case in point are the two children injured in their kindergarten near Ashkelon by a Qassam rocket which landed close by and left them with no time to run for shelter; a direct hit on the building would have had horrendous consequences. And the death toll is the mere tip of the iceberg of much deeper damage: the 640 injured, the damage to homes and workplaces, the disruption of business and education, but above all the effect on the mental health of the people, who must constantly be ready to reach a shelter within 15 seconds. Not surprisingly, one fifth of the population has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
In contrast, Israel does its utmost to minimise civilian casualties. In targeting the terrorists who are firing rockets, the Israeli Defence Forces are constantly constrained by the terrorists' use of densely populated civilian areas from which to launch their attacks. Yet they have managed to achieve a much lower ratio of civilian casualties than any other country engaged in this type of military activity. The overwhelming majority of Palestinians killed have been militants engaged in attacks on Israel. There is no foundation for your charge of "indiscriminate attacks on houses and apartments"; on the contrary, it is the Hamas attacks that are indiscriminate.
As for the political dimension, you admit that Israel's "dilemma" is "between completely excluding Hamas or including it on unacceptable terms".
What state can be expected to negotiate with an organisation whose very raison d'être is its elimination? In fact, Hamas has consistently ruled itself out of negotiations with Israel. It did so explicitly after it won the 2006 elections, in accordance with its charter, which states "there is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad" and labels all peace initiatives and conferences as contrary to its religious beliefs and "a waste of time, an exercise in futility".
Unfortunately all warfare is by definition "brutal", but this war is not of Israel's choosing. I would remind you that Israel pulled all its troops, as well as all settlers, out of Gaza in September 2005. Your tendency to portray Israel as the aggressor when it defends its citizens, and failure to place responsibility for innocent Palestinian deaths where it belongs, on Hamas and its terrorists, is something we take exception to.
These same terrorists dance in celebration at the death of every Israeli, such as the rabbinical students in Jerusalem who were murdered last Thursday. The extremist ideology that drives those who committed this act and those who fire rockets into Israel is the real obstacle to peace. - Yours, etc,
Dr ZION EVRONY, Ambassador of Israel, Dublin.