Dogan D. Akman
Israel is not fighting just the current wars against Hamas, the terrorists in Judea and Samaria and Hezbollah. It is in fact also fighting against a number of non-military wars across the continents.
One of these is the war against the truth waged against Israel where it has to defend itself against western countries where a segment of its social media, public speakers, politicians, academics, news reporters, and opinion writers, seek to discredit Israel for by alleging unsubstantiated dastardly ways in which it is conducting the defensive war against Hamas.
As amply documented by Honest Reporting Canada, most regretfully, for the country and particularly for its Jewish community, Canadians are also engaged in the war against the truth waged against Israel.
So. it did not take too long after the commencement of the war in Gaza against Hamas, that these folks started to engage in their war on the truth-- to accuse Israel, directly or by implication of, among other things 1) engaging in cavalier or careless use of force by citing fake casualty statistics issued by the Hamas Health organisation; 2) using hunger as a weapon against the Gazans, and 3) by describing the situation in Gaza as being on - the ever elusive - verge of famine let alone starvation.
A perfect illustration of the war on the truth by Canadians is the recent opinion piece by Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock- two former senior Liberal Cabinet Ministers, no less, who wrote, "Canada can help establish an international protective force in Gaza" published in the Globe and Mail of April 4th. It is an opinion piece premised on no less than five attacks on the truth, directly or by implication, against Israel, namely:
The allegation that 200 humanitarian workers were killed since the start of the war which is unsubstantiated. The authors use this number based on unidentified reports by unidentified authors published by unidentified agencies. Nor do the authors identify the identity, the cause of these deaths which makes it all questionable, particularly since it is an incontrovertible fact that Hamas has resorted to violence in order to high-jack humanitarian aid for its own use.
The number 32,000 of Gazans allegedly killed as a result of the war published by the Hamas government is useless as the figure fails to distinguish between Worse, it is an incontrovertible fact that the figure provided on this subject are demonstrably inflated. The facts of the matter are that the IDF made 15.5 million evacuation calls to civilians and dropped 9.3 million leaflets to that effect to secure their safety. Further, the IDF has in place and uses a number of strictly enforced criteria to avoid targeting groups where the possible presence of innocent civilians is suspected, where reasonable doubt is resolved in favour of the safety of the civilians. As a matter of fact, it is fair to state that during World War II and since, the U.S, among other countries, failed to show such caring for the safety of the civilians in enemy territories.
the numbers of dead civilians and Hamas terrorists;
the death of civilians killed as a result of Hamas' customary use of civilians as human shields and those killed by the Israeli forces, and
Innocent civilians killed by Hamas in its ordinary course of business in governing Gaza, and those killed by Israeli forces.
The writers refer to the Israeli army's "cavalier use of force" against seven humanitarian workers who died in Gaza. There is no evidence worth the paper on which it is written to prove that Israel uses military force in this fashion. In the case of the most regrettable death of the seven humanitarian workers, the IDF, true to form, immediately investigated the matter; readily admitted responsibility for the tragedy; publicly apologised for it, and expressed its heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims. Furthermore, since the death was caused by the failure of the air crew and their ground command to follow the mandatory safety guidelines and processes established by the IDF for the protection of the civilians, the air crew was fired and the five others were severely reprimanded. On the other hand, on April 7th the IDF published the facts that it had struck 32,000 terror targets in Gaza from the air and, (if I recall correctly) over 3000 from the ground. As against these figures, if nothing else, the heart wrenching death of the 7 workers demonstrates the abiding commitment of Israel to maximise the safety of the innocent civilian population.
The alleged "decimation" of the Gaza police force by the Israeli army. According to the American and English dictionaries (Shorter Oxford, Cambridge, New Webster's ) I consulted, the writers' use of the term " decimate" is both grossly inaccurate and inflammatory. By way of illustration Israeli forces did not "destroy large numbers of people, animals or other creatures or harmed something severely" (Cambridge) or "devastate, ravaged, wreak havoc" on the police force or on the individual members of the police force. To the extent the term was intended to refer to the disbanding of the Gaza police force, there is no evidence that the Israeli forces failed to deal with the matter in accordance with their knowledge of the nature of the relationship between the police force and Hamas that paid their wages and the wartime safety and security requirements in Gaza.
With respect to the alleged critical shortage of humanitarian supplies as it relates to Israel's alleged failure to allow it, Axworthy and Rock wrote: “...only the restoration of access for hundreds of truckloads of supplies needed each day in Gaza will end the threat of starvation.”
From the way the solution is drafted clearly they did not examine the problem in any depth and in this regard, they ignored the comprehensive detailed data on this subject published by the government of Israel such as that set out in Itamar Eichner’s Food crisis in Gaza? Data proves no famine, amid international accusations, Ynetnews com. March 21,2024; Einav Halabi, Israel rejects claims of hunger in Gaza, is it too late? Ynetnews com. March 23,2024, and i24News Israel highlights extensive humanitarian aid to Gaza amid scrutiny, April 03, 2024.
Nor did these writers bother to ascertain the failures or shortcomings of the aid agencies that compound the alleged problems, such as the inability of human rights groups to operate and the failure of the U.N to distribute the aid, not to mention the theft of substantial amounts of the aid by Hamas which also manages to turn some of this stolen aid into a lucrative business, selling it to merchants at exorbitant prices which the ordinary Gazan could not afford and threatening the merchants who resisted with grave consequences.
At the end of the day, Axworthy and Rock ignore the fundamental problem of the Gazans who are forced to live under the dictatorial regime of Hamas and are truly imprisoned by the mandate of the The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA ) established in 1950 along with the U.N. Refugee Agency(UNHCR) formally known as the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees.
However, unlike UNHCR, UNWRA does not have the requisite authority to provide the refugees under its care with an opportunity to immigrate to another country, where they can start a new life.
With this kind of fight against the truth concerning Israel, is it then surprising that in Canada the annual rates of antisemitism and antisemitic hatred are almost consistently the highest among all the other groups identified by their religion.
Further, is it then surprising that this ignorance, wilful or not, an example of the war on truth, exposes the rank hypocrisy of the friends and allies of Israel such as the U.S and Britain? as described by Rachel O'Donoghue, Tragic World Central Kitchen Aid Workers Incident Exposes Rank Hypocrisy, Honest Reporting, April 8, 2024.