Sir, – Your editorial of July 6th (“Jenin: descent into violence continues”) puts the blame on Israel, and Israel alone, for the recent fighting in Jenin.
This is a distortion of the truth. This year has seen a huge escalation in Palestinian terrorism and attacks on Israeli civilians.
So far in this year alone, 29 Israelis have been murdered and nearly 300 maimed and injured in horrific attacks, many of them directed from Jenin.
What country on Earth, even a neutral country like Ireland, would tolerate such vicious attrition against its people?
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Jenin has become a stronghold of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two organisations engaged in a permanent terror campaign against Israel; their declared aim is our total annihilation.
Even some Fatah members linked to the Palestinian Authority are involved in the Jenin terrorist network. Their professed aim is slaughtering Jews.
The Jenin operation was a response not only to escalating violence but also to the first use of rockets fired at Israeli civilians from Jenin since the Second Intifada.
The Israel Defence Forces acted with restraint and inflicted a heavy blow to the terrorist network while minimising casualties, as even fair-minded reporters and media organisations have admitted.
There would, of course, have been even less damage if the Palestinian terrorists had not hidden in civilian neighbourhoods as usual.
Their professed battle cry, as always, remains “Itbah al-Yahud (”Kill the Jews”).
It is a shame that some people in Ireland – including many politicians – give voice to those lies that only encourage the violence and cause loss on all sides while they themselves are remote from this conflict and have no personal stake in it. – Yours, etc,
LIRONNE BAR SADEH,
Ambassador of Israel,
Dublin.