# 6 – Tit for Tat

July 23, 2002

Can’t let you think that yesterday’s attack on Gaza by the IDF is something we ignore.

Let me assure you that all forms of the media here are hot with the subject, and although there is general support for the death of the Hamas leader, the civilian casualties have caused great debate.

The ‘Popolitika’ TV discussion was particularly feisty.

What do I feel?

First, one guy’s comment rings in my ears: You cannot answer terrorism with silence.

OK, so where does that lead us? To this?

Someone has to have the guts to say ‘stop’, and then both sides have to have the guts to actually stop. But to have such guts, one also needs patience, civility and plain common sense. And that seems to be lacking on at least one side, and, dare I say, at the risk of being labelled ‘left-wing’, on the other.

There is so much hypocrisy mixed up here, but, after such a tragedy, it does not help to start listing examples.

Hamas has vowed to attack Israelis ‘on buses, in markets and other centres – and in their homes’. That’s laughable if it weren’t so sinister.

They now vow to do…exactly that which they have been doing in the past.

So we don’t learn. And the suffering will continue.

To put it simply, this action was wrong.

But nothing’s that simple

Stephen