‘Moral mistake’ not to hit back at terrorist fire from mosques, schools

Now the prime minister reaches the thrust of his message to the international media — which is that Israel has had an obligation to fight Hamas in the way that it has done.

It would be “a moral mistake,” he says, not to act against terrorist fire from mosques, schools and residential areas. Such behavior would represent “an enormous victory for terrorists everywhere,” he says.

If this were to happen, more and more civilians would die around the world, he says.

Terrorists must not be allowed to “fight from civilian areas with impunity.”

Terrorists count on the victimized country responding as it must and being blamed for doing so. But the world must not accept a situation in which the terrorists are vindicated and the victim country is accused.

And therefore, “what’s happening now is not only a test for Israel but for the international community, for the civilized world itself, how it is to defend itself,” he says.

The prime minister blames Hamas for the bulk of the civilian deaths, due to its rejection of the various ceasefire proposals offered throughout the campaign.

“90 percent of the fatalities could have been avoided had Hamas not rejected then the ceasefire it accepts now. Hamas needs to be blamed for these deaths, ostracized from the family of nations,” he says.

It must be “prevented from rearming,” he says. That’s the way “to prevent this conflict from bring repeated.”

— Raphael Ahren