Outrage at the UN and across the world since Israel’s launch on Monday of its biggest military assault on the Palestinian-administered West Bank in more than two decades – targeted at the overcrowded Jenin refugee camp – is no surprise. But it is hard to justify, given evidence of the extent to which, according to Israeli media, Jenin has become a “hotbed of terrorism” and been the launching pad for months of terrorist attacks on Israel and its people. The Jerusalem Post reports 24 people have been killed in Israel in just six months. Victims have included children aged six and eight, and the mother and two daughters of a British-Israeli family.
In each instance, the terrorists’ links have been tracked back to the Jenin camp. So have more than 50 other shootings in the same period, with security forces establishing 19 terrorists responsible for them fled back to Jenin. Reports speak of the “Lebanonisation” and “Gazafication” of the Jenin camp, with 25 per cent of its population affiliated to Iran-backed terrorist group Islamic Jihad and 20 per cent actively supporting Gaza’s Hamas terrorists.
No self-respecting sovereign nation should be expected to turn a blind eye and ignore the provenance of murderous outrages against its citizens. It would be absurd to expect Israel, as it confronts daily threats to its existence, to be different.
Read the editorial in The Australian.