Tragedy of war made worse by an ignorance of history

It would be impossible to be other than deeply concerned about the fate of civilians caught up in the war between the Hamas terrorists and Israel. But the dreadful plight of the innocent victims of the conflict – Gazan and Israeli – is not being helped by the short memories, mindless ignorance of history, and misrepresentations of those taking to the streets in Australia and cities across the world to demonstrate, they say, their support for a “free Palestine”.

A little more than three weeks ago, on October 7, there was just about universal horror over the shocking depravity and inhumane barbarity of the Hamas terrorists as they slaughtered 1400 men, women and children, ripping away their lives in the worst violence against Jews since the Holocaust. Now, however, it is not Hamas’s savagery that the demonstrators have in their sights but Israel’s response to the murderous onslaught by killers who have shown themselves to be every bit as evil as those who slaughter and rape in the name of Islamic State and al-Qa’ida. David Horovitz, the widely respected liberal editor of The Times of Israel, wrote on Monday about the speed with which sentiment, including that in much of the world’s media, had changed “from brief, initial empathy for all those whose lives were shot and burned and butchered away, for their bereft and broken families and for the innocent snatched away into Hamas’s underground hellholes, to a rising global effort to deprive us of the right to ensure it will not happen again. A rising global effort propelled by Israel-haters and anti-Semites, assisted by falsehoods and misrepresentations everywhere from TikTok to supposedly responsible media, and inflated by fools”.

It is bad enough that demonstrators the world over, including in our cities, have mindlessly adopted the sinister anti-Semitic slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” that is identified with Hamas’s founding objective to kill Jews, destroy the Jewish state and form a unified Palestinian state stretching from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. British Home Secretary Suella Braverman has warned police the slogan should be “interpreted as an indication of a violent desire for the elimination of Israel”.

As egregious as the demonstrators are, however, they are more than matched in their painful ignorance by many in the media. Reporters, as Chris Mitchell wrote on Monday, are showing themselves to be all too “quick to swallow Hamas lies” and “now see their role as upholding moral virtue … (the) trouble is, they are too ill-informed to know where virtue lies”.

Evidence is, indeed, replete of widespread ignorance among journalists. Few seem to know anything of the reality that causing collateral damage is a major aspect of the Hamas terrorists’ murderous business model. Neither do they understand the history of World War II, which shows that as regrettable as bombing was to defeat an odious, totalitarian enemy, it was essential to achieve an end to the conflict and the survival of the world’s democracies and free societies.

Few now appear interested in confirmed accounts showing that Hamas high command is operating, conveniently, from tunnels beneath Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital, which the Israelis are reluctant to attack.

Why, as Mitchell asked, does the media focus constantly on false claims of collective punishment by Israel? Yet it wilfully ignores the reality that for two decades Hamas has been launching its missiles at Israel from within Gaza’s schools, hospitals and mosques.

It would be hard to argue with Mitchell’s conclusion that it would be well to “reflect on how Hamas uses the suffering of the Palestinians to win the public relations war in the West against Israel”. A little historical perspective rather than the juvenile acceptance of Hamas’s claims would help.

So would some knowledge about the history of previous conflicts such as World War II.

The mobs of protesters and many in the media are making fools of themselves. They would do well to learn from Horovitz’s heartfelt “horror and fury” over the “global immorality” that now confronts the Jewish state: “Israel,” Horovitz argued, “is fighting not in retaliation or out of revenge but in order to ensure Gaza’s terror government cannot survive to repeat its barbarism”. It is overwhelmingly in the interests of the free world and human decency that it remains resolute in doing so.