Editor, the Tribune: Recently, Israeli journalist Noam Bedein spoke at the University of Missouri. Bedein presented stories of the victims of rocket terrorism of people who live in Sderot, Israel. Bedein is an eyewitness.

Noam Bedein, Director of the Sderot Media Center holding two drawings made by Israeli children, wishing for peace with their Gazan neighbors.

The poster for the event said, “Sderot, Israel, is a border town close to the Gaza Strip. The Government agency in Gaza, Hamas, has fired over 12,700 rockets, killing and injuring the people of Sderot in their homes, schools and synagogues.” What makes the rocket attacks terrorism and not resistance fighting is that these attacks target civilians.

FOR’s flier did say, “It’s a war crime to target civilians.” But this is doublespeak: in one paragraph they are mentioning this as a crime, then using a joke to justify the terrorist attacks as the rational response to the security restrictions and, in effect, blaming the people of Sderot.

The comparison fails because the rockets are not harmless yelling, though the parents who have lost children wish they were.

As long as FOR continues to make jokes blaming the people being hit by the rockets and not the people firing the rockets, there will be no peace.

Below: Noam Bedein interviewed in South Africa

Contributed by Daniel Swindell. The piece Gaza Rocket Attacks No Laughing Matter  was published originally in the Colombia Daily Tribune on November 23, 2013. 

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