Give Israel the credit it deserves

Sent to the Boston Globe February 12:

To the editor:

While getting tremendous pressure, even from its friends, to refrain from going into Rafah because of the dense population, Israel provided graphic evidence of the obvious need to root Hamas from Rafah and its ability to continue to minimize civilian casualties, already evident from the fact that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza has been less than a quarter of that expected by the UN in urban combat.

First, Israel revealed the way not only was UNRWA's main headquarters in Gaza City directly above a terror tunnel containing a major Hamas command and data processing center, but provided power for Hamas' facility and Hamas terrorists actually worked out of offices in UNRWA's headquarters!

Second, Israel conducted an amazing operation in the heart of Rafah, rescuing two hostages there, killing a number of terrorists and doing it without a single civilian casualty!

Without Israel rooting Hamas out of Rafah, Hamas will be able to survive, rearm, fire more rockets, commit more atrocities and there will be more wars and humanitarian disasters in Gaza.

I challenge those who insist Israel stay out of Gaza to do three things: Convince Hamas to surrender unconditionally, get the rockets, weapons and terror tunnels in Rafah destroyed, and move to the Israeli communities next to Gaza which are now empty because it's unsafe to live there and will continue to be unsafe to live there until Hamas is permanently neutralized.

In the meantime, please stop applying double standards to Israel and give America's only real friend in the Middle East the credit it deserves.

Sincerely,

Alan Stein

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