Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Israel Has a New Weapon Against Hamas: International Indifference

Syria and Iraq have been a reality check to the international community. There are only a few people who can say that Islam is the religion of peace while standing on a pile formed by 200,000 dead bodies.
(The Wire) As it seems to be embarking on its third war with Hamas in less than six years, Israel faces a foe that has lost most of its key allies and the attention of the international community.

The outrage that accompanied last week's discovery of the bodies of three kidnapped Israelis and a suspected revenge attack in which a Palestinian teenager was kidnapped and murdered has dissipated, even as the violence that followed has escalated. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced yet another expansion of the Israel Defense Forces' ongoing operation in Gaza. Here was a similar declaration yesterday:
Ordinarily, this moment would be accompanied by a cascade of international opprobrium from Palestinian supporters, demands for restraint, and perhaps calls from Israel's own allies to rein in its forces. Yet even as the death toll in Gaza grows from the Israeli campaign — Israel has reportedly struck 400 targets in Gaza since yesterday morning from the sea and the air — there has been relative quiet about the battle. Hamas continues to fires its rockets, hundreds of them, deeper into Israeli territory than ever before, but the normally raucous international chorus has barely made a peep so far.

In an interview with the Times of Israel, a senior Israeli official said as much:
The international community is totally disinterested. Yes, there were a few press releases from [UK Foreign Secretary] William Hague and a few others, but generally the world doesn’t show any particular interest in this.”
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