When the Palestinians refer to their so-called peaceful protest as a March of Return, why does the rest of the world not consider it a threat to Israel?
Where does the rest of the world think the Gazan Palestinians plan to return? And what will they do to get there?
The truth is, the Hamas terrorist organization that runs Gaza has made no secret of the plan.
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said last week the Palestinians will continue their “struggle until they achieve their freedom and restore all their lands.” He said that the Palestinians’ “right to all of the soil of Palestine was absolute and clear.”
And when Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar says, “We are going to Jerusalem, millions of martyrs,” how does the rest of the world think the Palestinian struggle is going to play out?
I, for one, do not anticipate that the tens of thousands of Palestinians that Hamas expects to breach the border and pour into Israel are going to lock arms with me and my fellow citizens and sing “Kumbaya.”
Which is why it should come as no surprise to the Palestinians or the international community that the Israel Defense Forces showed up to prevent the breaching of our border.
The IDF in fact announced ahead of the march that protesters – peaceful and otherwise – should stay at least 300 meters (328 yards) from the border fence, a buffer zone, or risk being stopped with live fire.
I wish things had played out differently over the last two Fridays. For example, what if the IDF had taken up positions several hundred meters from the border and only targeted protesters who actually breached the fence and crossed into Israel. Riskier from the security standpoint, but if successful, it might have shown the international community just how “peaceful” the march and some of its protesters actually were.
Last Friday’s protest, the second Friday in a row, was dubbed the “tire protest” because some 10,000 tires were brought to the border and set on fire in an effort to throw off the Israeli sharpshooters. The IDF said afterward that it used live fire “sparingly” to prevent actual attempts to breach the border fence or to ignite explosives against soldiers. I can only imagine how the black, billowing smoke led to extra confusion among the Israeli troops, with some very tragic consequences.
One of the most tragic is the death of a Palestinian journalist, who was operating a drone over the heads of Israeli troops. Despite the fact he was wearing a vest emblazoned with the word “Press,” he was shot by an Israeli soldier and later died of his wounds. “The IDF does not intentionally fire on journalists,” the IDF Spokesman’s Unit said in a statement. I believe it. Could they even see him through the smoke coming from the burning tires?
The Washington Post quotes a colleague of the journalist as saying he lost sight of him in the thick, black smoke about 100 meters from the border, before he was shot.
Our defense minister, Avigdor Liberman, was not nearly as circumspect.
“I don’t know who is or isn’t a photographer. Anyone who operates drones above IDF soldiers needs to understand he’s putting himself in danger,” he said.
In fact, Palestinian terrorists have in the past dressed as paramedics and used ambulances to transport arms and fellow terrorists. Just because a vest says that a person is a journalist does not make it so. Unfortunately.
And so far, at least 10 of the dead protesters have been officially named and identified as being a member of a terror group, mostly Hamas, with a rap sheet. So even if the protest was officially supposed to be peaceful, it is clear terrorists exploited it for more nefarious purposes.
The March of Return protests are planned to last until the final march in mid-May, which Hamas says will include one million protesters and will mark the secular date of Israel’s 70th year of independence as well as what the Arab world calls the Nakba, or the catastrophe. That last march is meant to remove the border and “liberate Palestine.”
The IDF will have to be ready. I hope our PR mavens will be ready as well.
Marcy Oster is a former Clevelander who covers the Middle East for the Cleveland Jewish News from Karnei Shomron, West Bank.
