Misplacing the blame on Gaza

Re: A Messy business. Terry Glavin, May 17

Terry Glavin insists that the onus is on Israel to refine the methods it employs to keep angry Gazans from breaching the Israel-gaza border.

Not to do so, says Glavin, is “an abomination.”

Well, that’s one way to look at it. And it’s precisely the way Hamas wants the world to see it, the better to make Israel look like the “bad guy” and elicit Glavinesque comments from Western media pundits.

In its 70 years of existence, Israel has repeatedly adapted to, in Glavin’s phrase, “a situation that is impossible.” Its very survival depended on it. The onus is now on Hamas — and Iran — to ameliorate the situation in Gaza. Mindy G. Alter, Toronto Although I believe Mr. Glavin’s heart is in the right place, the headline should have read: The world must adapt to a situation that is possible.

The IDF’S rule to first warn, then wound, then kill is more humanitarian than that of most other countries. And no, it is not morally untenable and it is not an abomination.

What is morally untenable and an abomination is the cowardice and bias exhibited by other countries, organizations and individuals in not standing up to the threats and violence perpetrated by Hamas and other terrorist organizations against innocent civilians the world over, especially against their own people by using them as human shields to evoke sympathy.

Blaming the IDF or Israel or Jews in general is just a way to deflect from the collapse of will on the part of the West to defend itself and its values.

When, if ever, will the world tire of using Israel or the Jews as a scapegoat for blame that should be directed right back where it belongs, at a world that is losing the moral will and purpose to survive?

The Jewish people value life more than anything else, and that is perhaps where this conflict with an exhausted and aimless West is so clearly exhibited on a world stage on almost a daily basis. Jack Shore, Toronto