THE GAZA EXCHANGE RATE

By Schmoel Yitzhak

A random sample of thirteen New York Times news stories involving Israel invariably will find a dozen of them tilted against the Jewish State. 

After all the alleged "newspaper of record," among other things has been the propaganda broadsheet for President Barack Obama and the Arabs. In the journalism business it's called "having an agenda."

This once again has been apparent during the recent rocket blitz emanating from Gaza that has sent more than a million Israelis running for cover.  

Reading The Times, one would imagine that the Jews have been at fault -- yet again! -- because a few Arabs have been killed during the exchanges.

Unfortunately what has been overlooked -- over and over again -- is the sequence of events that brought about the Arab-inspired missile hailstorm specifically designed to terrorize cities from Ashkelon to Beersheba, not to mention large swaths of the Negev  Region. 

You can bet your bottom shekel that ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundreths percent of the time clashes are initiated by the Arabs; and so it was in this instance when an Israeli worker was killed by a terrorist while working on a security fence. 

This was abundantly clear and, thus, the grim game had begun, again ignited by Hamas and its shadowy crony organizations.

Like any responsible country obligated to protect its citizens, Israel responded to the attack and killed at least one of the border assassins. 

At that point there should have been a cessation of hostilities. The eye-for-an-eye theory had been fulfilled. But, no, Hamas does not play by those rules; in fact it plays by no rules but its own.

In no time at all the rocket-launching from Gaza began in earnest and Israel -- in its half of the inning -- sent its air force in search of the terror cells. As usually is the case, the IAF found targets and destroyed most. But even with the introduction of  the Iron Dome batteries that shield some of the cities in the South, there are precious few Domes and those operating are only able to intercept a small fraction of the Grads and advanced missiles being employed more and more by Hamas.

Back and forth went the Arab attacks and Israeli counterstrikes until, finally, Hamas did what it has done so often in the past; requested a cease fire. 

Of course by this time the mainstream international media did what it always does; avoided pinpointing the original cause for the conflict; the Arabs started it by killing an Israeli fence-worker.

This past Sunday, The Times did it again; this time with an "Opinion" piece written by an alleged "Middle East analyst" named Nathan Thrall. (The name itself was symbolically ideal because his writing indicated that he's held in thrall of the Arabs.)

Like the shabby journalism perpetrated by the paper's news section with its coverage of Israel, Thrall betrayed the same sloppy mistakes; inevitably indicting Israel for inspiring past intifadas while warning that "The Third Intifada Is Inevitable."

In on segment of his one-sided column, Thrall casually and superficially refers to the Oslo peace process, omitting the fact that -- after being offered a sweetheart deal -- Yassir Arafat's response was to declare war on Israel with a murderous intifada. When it came to citing the Arab atrocities committed against Israelis during that bloody period, The Times man conveniently developed amnesia. 

"The root cause of this (present Arab) instability," writes Thrall, "is that Palestinians have lost all hope that Israel will grant them a state."

If Thrall really was serious about giving the issue fair treatment, he would have noted that Israel -- unconditionally and unilaterally -- moved its troops out of Southern Lebanon although logic dictated that they remain until the Lebanese proved that they wanted peaceful co-existence. What Israel got in return was a devastating Hezbollah-inspired rocket assault that terrorized the North as never before.

Nor did Thrall mention the fact that against the advice of a large segment of his populace, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unconditionally pulled Israel out of Gaza on the premise that the Palestinians there would respond with peace and quiet.

That peace and quiet lasted for a relatively short time soon followed by thousands of rockets -- and an Israel counterattack, Operation Cast Lead. After a typically useless truce,  the Hamas-engineered blitz continues. 

What can one make of it? As far as I'm concerned the best answer has been supplied by Moshe Arens who knows Israeli politics and Middle East meddling as well as anyone.

"The threat will continue to grow," warns Arens, "until the weapons held by the terrorists in the Gaza Strip are destroyed and the resupply is blocked. This should have been done during Operation Cast Lead but the task was not completed then. Once you start, you had better finish the job."

When the time comes that Benjamin Netanyahu's government does finish the job, you can be sure that The Times will blame Israel for starting the war and -- naturally -- for defending itself!