Solidarity

WHEN it comes to the Israeli government’s judicial revamp push, there is little agreement between the ruling coalition and opposition parties.

But one issue unites all of them – as it should – the protection of Israel’s citizens.

Which is why leaders of all colours have gotten behind Operation House and Garden in the West Bank city of Jenin. And it is why we support Israel at this time in the actions it must take to ensure the safety of its citizens.

Over the past year, Jenin has become a haven for armed gangs and terrorist organisations, many backed by Iran, a nation sworn to Israel’s annihilation.

This has translated into a swathe of terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. It is a situation no nation should tolerate. It is also a situation no other nation would be expected to tolerate.

Importantly, Jenin’s decline into anarchy didn’t happen in a vacuum. Terrorist infrastructure was allowed to take root there because of the inaction of Palestinian Authority (PA) forces. For the PA – which may not itself engage directly in terrorism, but incites violence against Israelis and pays salaries to terrorists and their families – to announce it is cutting ties with Israel due to the IDF doing what it could or would not is the height of hypocrisy.

Sadly, each time Israel is forced into a defensive operation, there are some innocent Palestinians who lose their lives.

This is of course a tragedy, but not one of Israel’s making. Rather it is the terror organisations who deliberately hide among civilians, their Iranian backers and the corrupt PA who are to blame.

Those who are so quick to point the finger at Israel would do well to realise this.

Indeed, that this is happening in Jenin should remind all those who blindly condemn Israel of their folly. During the Second Intifada, aided by images of damage from a small section of the city’s refugee camp, the lie of a “massacre in Jenin” spread across the world like wildfire; it was later proven to be nothing but fiction.

The cost of that lie was a win for terrorism and 21 years later, nothing has changed.