Don’t blame Hamas for atrocities

ALLAN Wolman asserts that Hamas is to blame for the brutal killing of of unarmed Palestinian civilians, including women and children, by teenage IDF conscript soldiers on the Israeli occupied Gaza border (“Women, children, casualties”, The Star Letters, June 13).

The killing of the nurse shows no mercy and once more how ill-equipped the IDF is with their teenage soldiers who look at Palestinians as some kind of target practice. Please see the website B’Tselem for visual coverage on how teenage IDF soldiers play with live ammo on Palestinians.

As for Syria – and then why not include Libya, Iraq and a few other failed states in the Middle East and North Africa regions. Ask yourself which foreign powers are intervening and supplying the “rebel” forces with arms and ammunition.

Muammar Gaddafi did wonders for Libya and its water crises as well as social reforms since independence. Where is Libya today, after Gaddafi?

As for blaming Hamas for the atrocities in Gaza, this is the most absurd logic and the same as blaming the PAC and its leader Robert Sobukwe for the Sharpeville massacre or the ANC for the SADF raids in Lesotho and Botswana under PW Botha’s era.

The people of Gaza are punished for supporting Hamas, but is that not their choice? Durban North