Alan Rusbridger is right

Sent to The Independent on February 17.

To the editor:

Alan Rusbridger is right about October 7 not happening in a vacuum, but he's completely off base regarding the context.

The relevant context includes the fanatical opposition by Hamas to the existence of Israel - not anything about Israel's actions, just its existence as a free, Western-style, non-Arab, non-Muslim multicultural democracy in the Middle East, and the way Hamas has spent the nearly two decades since its bloody coup in 2007 building its terror infrastructure, including arms, rockets, an immense underground network of tunnels.

The relevant context includes misguided pressure put on Israel for a premature ceasefire every time Hamas started another war, allowing Hamas to regroup and rearm with the financial backing of Qater and an Iran enriched by a misguided nuclear agreement it has violated from the beginning.

The relevant context includes sending massive amounts of aid to Gaza and looking the other way when most of it was stolen by Hamas, ignoring the way, after assuring Israel that all the cement sent to Gaza would be used for civilian infrastructure, Hamas took 90% of it and used it to build its hundred of miles of terror tunnels.

The relevant context includes continuing to fund UNRWA even though, rather than solving a initially relevantly small problem of refugees and overseeing its expansion by a factor of at least ten over a period of three-quarters of a century and indoctrinating generations of youths in hatred and the glory of becoming a shahid.

That is the heart of what led to the barbaric October 7 Massacre, led by Hamas with the participation of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah, other terror groups and thousands of ordinary Gaza "civilians." That is what also led to all the death and destruction in Gaza and while the primary blame lies with Hamas and the other terror groups, all those who enabled Hamas and pressured Israel share a large portion.

Yes, Alan Rusbridger is dead right about October 7 not occurring in a vacuum; he's dead wrong about everything else.

Sincerely,

Alan Stein

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