The Conflict with Hamas: Address by Israel's Ambassador to the UK

This week Israeli Ambassador Daniel Taub travelled to Bradford in northern

England after George Galloway MP declared it an "Israel-free zone." After
meeting with local councillors and officials, he addressed local community
and faith leaders:

Introduction

I am delighted to be here in this wonderful city today. And I am especially
glad to be here at the invitation of people who want to give voice to the
real Bradford. In recent weeks there have been voices claiming to speak on
behalf of Bradford. But today I've had the chance to meet local people and
local leaders, including city councillors and faith leaders, and I feel I've had
the chance to hear the real voice of Bradford.

And that's a voice of tolerance, of understanding, of building bridges not
breaking them.

It's a voice which says, in the very best spirit of Yorkshire, that there's only
ever been one good boycott and that's Geoff Boycott.

This real Bradford has a great deal to teach the world about a multicultural
city where Christians, Muslims, and Jews live, work, and cooperate
together. Here, the historic synagogue thrives thanks to the support of the
Muslim community. It's a much-needed model of how people who may not
agree about everything can still listen to each other, hear each other, and
treat each other with genuine respect.

We need that spirit more than ever today. Because there are three critical
battles being played out, with serious consequences for all of us. And only
by listening can we hope to understand them.

The battle against Hamas
The first is the conflict we have seen over the past 5 weeks between Israel
and Hamas in Gaza. It's a tragic conflict with terrible suffering for Israelis
and for the people of Gaza where so many have been killed and so many
hurt.

Its tragic also because it was so unnecessary. Nine years ago Israel pulled
out of every inch of Gaza. The only thing Israelis want in Gaza is to see a
thriving, responsible Palestinian society.

That's why for weeks we didnt respond even as hundreds of rockets and
missiles were fired on towns and villages in southern Israel.

It's why Israel accepted every one of the eight ceasefire proposals made to
date, while Hamas has rejected or violated every single one.

It's heart-breaking to realise that if only Hamas had accepted the Egyptian
humanitarian ceasefire proposal, which was supported by the Arab League
and the United Nations, but when it was made over a month ago, when
Israel didn't just accept but unilaterally implemented it while still under
fire; if Hamas had only accepted that proposal not this week but then, how
many lives, Palestinian and Israeli, would have been saved.

But the rockets continued unabated, reaching further and further into
Israel, so that today 75% of Israelis, over 5 million people, are within range
and have to live their lives in reach of bomb shelters. And alongside the
missile attacks we uncovered a massive network of underground attack
tunnels built by Hamas over the past seven years, stretching up to a mile
into Israel for the sole purpose of murdering and kidnapping Israelis. So we
had no choice but to respond.

In Israel we disagree about many things, sometimes it seems about most
things, but on this there was no disagreement. Because across the entire
spectrum of our politics, we knew what this is about.

It's not about settlements: we pulled out every single settler - more than
8000 people - from the Gaza Strip.

It's not about blockades: there are restrictions on certain things going into
Gaza not on food, or medicine or humanitarian supplies, but on materials
that can be used for terrorism. But dont let's forget there was no blockade
when we pulled out of Gaza. These restrictions arent the cause of Hamas
attacks, theyre its result.

And it's not about whether there will be a Palestinian state. Lets be clear
its about whether there can be a Jewish one; whether there is room for a
State of Israel at all in the Middle East. Hamas is convinced that there isn't.
It couldnt be stated more clearly in its Charter: 'Israel will exist and will
continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others
before it.'

This latest burst of violence is another round in a war waged against the
existence of Israel since its birth. For years that war was fought, in 1948,
1967, 1973, by states using armies. But then the states realised they could
hide behind terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.

And just as Iran hides behind Hamas, Hamas hides behind the civilians it
claims to be fighting for.

When the Greek Orthodox Archbishop in Gaza describes how his church
has been used as a launching site for rockets, or the head of the UN in
Gaza admits that UN schools have repeatedly been used to store weapons,
it's hard to grasp how anyone could do this. But in the sick calculus of
Hamas, this is a win-win scenario: either they will be left alone to
perpetrate attacks or they will reap a macabre PR advantage from civilian
casualties.

This is a horrendous strategy, and there is no simple response. We have to
try to defend Israeli civilians, while doing everything we can to protect
Palestinian civilians. In practice this means taking precautionary measures
which may well be unprecedented in military conflict: issuing warnings
before attacks, on the radio, through leaflets and individual phone calls,
aborting attacks at the last minute, sending in ground troops to avoid the
need for heavy aerial bombardment even at the increased risk to our
own troops, which have seen over 60 Israeli soldiers killed.

But in any conflict in which one side uses its weapons to protect its
civilians, and the other uses its civilians to protect its weapons, there will
always be an asymmetry of casualties, and the suffering on the Palestinian
side is truly tragic.

Which is why it is so important to look beyond the pictures and see who it
is that regards every civilian casualty a failure and who celebrates it as a
success. To see, now as the conflict is hopefully drawing to a close, the vast
moral gulf between Hamas, which is being instructed by the mullahs in Iran
and its funders in Qatar to investigate why it didnt succeed in murdering
more Israelis, and Israel, which is conducting painstaking investigations
into its operations to see if there are ways that more Palestinian lives could
have been saved.

This is the first battle, and it's a critical battle not just for Israel, but for
every country confronting terrorism. Terrorist groups around the world are
watching what happens in Gaza and it's vital that they don't conclude that
they have found the Achilles' heel of democracies: that if only they set up
shop inside a school or a hospital they can act with impunity.

The battle within Palestinian society

But what we have been witnessing this past month is not just a conflict
between Israel and Gaza. It's also a battle within Gaza, over the future of
Palestinian society.

When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, we hoped that it would flourish,
with agriculture blooming in the greenhouses we left behind and tourists
flocking to its beaches. This is the future that we want for the people of
Gaza. This is the future that Hamas has stolen from them.

Every time Hamas takes cement and building materials that could have
built houses, day-care centres and factories in order to build tunnels to
infiltrate Israel, it steals that future.

Every time Hamas orders people to martyr themselves for its sake, to run
onto the roofs of terrorist headquarters to shield them from attack, it robs
them of their future.

When it stops Palestinians from reaching the field hospital Israel set up at
Gaza's northern border crossing, when it blocks the entry of 3000 units of
blood and other medical supplies, it is not just waging war against Israel; it
is waging war against the future of the Palestinian people.

That is why it's so shocking that a member of the British parliament the
representative for Bradford East could say: "The big question is if I lived
in Gaza would I fire a rocket? Probably yes.

It's a horrible insult to Israelis, more than 1000 of whom have been killed
in Palestinian terrorist attacks. But more than that it's an insult to the very
people that David Ward claims to care about.

Isnt it an insult to the Palestinians of Saajiyeh who demonstrated against
the terrorists who had taken their neighborhood hostage and who were
summarily executed by Hamas? Probably yes.

Isn't it an insult to the Palestinian children forced into slave labour to dig
Hamas' terror tunnels, 160 of whom, according to the Journal of Palestine
studies, died in the process? Probably yes.

Isn't it an insult to every Palestinian parent who tries to raise their kids to
believe in the sanctity of every life, to reject violence, to reject the Hamas
leaders who say "we desire death as you desire life"? Probably no,
definitely yes.

It was a truly shocking remark, and the Chief Whip of David Ward's party,
who investigated it and concluded that it "didnt bring the party into
disrepute", really needs to think long and hard about whether, if that's the
case, that's a reputation worth having.

David Ward made another statement. He said: "Ich bin ein Palestinian. The
West must make up its mind - which side is it on?

But no, it's you, David, who has to decide which side you are on. Are you
with the civilians suffering in the Shifa hospital, or the cowardly terrorists
hiding in the basements beneath them? Are you with the people praying in
the mosques and churches, or the people hiding weapons in them and
shooting from them?

It's you, David, you who say 'Ich bin ein Palestinian', who have to make up
your mind, what kind of Palestinian du bist.

The wider battle the past vs. the future

Both the battles I've been describing, between Israel and Hamas, and
between Hamas and Palestinian society, are at root a struggle between the
past and the future.

You only have to compare Israel's Declaration of Independence with the
Hamas Charter. Israel's declaration is forward looking, aspirational. It sets
out the ideal of building a society based on freedom and equality and
opportunity. Hamas' Charter has no positive vision. It glorifies terror and
calls for the annihilation of Israel and the West. Perhaps neither Israel nor
Hamas fully live up to their founding documents but the truth is that we
are both trying our best.

That struggle between forces seeking to pull us back into a primitive past,
and those trying to build a better future is part of a much wider battle
being waged throughout our region, in Syria, in Iraq, and beyond.

That struggle is playing out here in the UK as well. In the tweets and on the
streets. It's surprisingly easy to tell who is on which side. You just have to
ask people to stop shouting what they are against, and say what they are
for.

When I see demonstrations against Israel, there's always a strange
assortment of people. I see red flags, green flags, black flags - Communist
flags, Hamas flags, ISIS flags. And as long as they are shouting about what
they are against, Israel or the West, that coalition sort of hangs together.
But when you ask: But what are you for? Are you for women's rights? Are
you for gay rights? Are you for freedom of expression? Then, all of a
sudden, that coalition simply falls apart.

If you can articulate no positive vision, you have no moral compass.
Everyone who shares your hatred is your ally in an axis of hostility.

Against this axis, the challenge is to build a counter-axis. Of all those who
can articulate a positive vision for their own society, who place their
children's welfare before their ideological hatreds, who believe in
deepening cooperation and understanding; all of them are our partners.
Together we comprise an alliance of the future.

Are we for the axis of hostility or the alliance of the future? That is the
fundamental question that we face, not just in Gaza or Mosul or Damascus,
but in the UK and here in Bradford. What will we export to the Middle
East: tolerance and understanding, or hatred and bigotry? Are we on the
side of the past or the future?

When George Galloway insists that Bradford is 'an Israel-free zone', there
is no doubt at all which side he is on.

Of all the countries in the Middle East, the one that Galloway singles out
for exclusion is not Syria, where 170,000 Syrians have been butchered by
Assad's regime, nor Iraq where the brutal execution of hundreds of
Christians continues as we speak. No, it is the one country in the Middle
East where every minority can vote and sit on the Supreme Court; where
women can be ministers and Prime Ministers; where homosexuals can live
without fear; where there is not just freedom of speech but freedom after
speech; in short the one country where Galloway could speak as
objectionably as he does and still live to see another day.

It's not an Israel-free zone you are advocating, George. Its a tolerance-free
zone, a progress free-zone, a future-free zone.

When peace comes.

The way to bring change and hope to the Middle East is not to export hate
and bigotry but vision and cooperation. It's not boycotts that will change
the region, it's people, speaking to each other, working with each other,
inspiring each other. It's the incredible joint scientific and medical research
done between British universities and Israeli universities, creating jobs in
both countries and jobs for Palestinians too, and doubling our bilateral
trade in the past four years. It's the awesome power of combining British
determination and Israeli innovation. I think about Claire Lomas, the
remarkable British athlete, paralysed, confined to a wheelchair who, using
an Israeli invention, an electronic walking suit, managed to complete the
London marathon.

Those are some of the things that we've done, but it's nothing compared
to what we can yet do. I think of the talented Palestinians that I've met in
the course of 20 years in our negotiations together. I think of the Israeli
youngsters including two of my own boys doing their army service,
knowing that they are Israel's line of defence. The potential is amazing.
And it's people, not political grandstanding, that will bring about the
change.

One day, please God one day soon, peace will come to our troubled region.
On that day we will all of us have to ask ourselves a question. The question
then will not be, "What did you do in the war?" but rather, "What did you
do for the peace?"

Did you add to the sum of hatred or the sum of understanding? Did you
capitalise on the conflict for political gain or did you contribute something
of value to give hope to the region? Did you build boycotts or bridges? Did
you pull people into a dark and primitive past, or help them envision a
better future?
When that day comes I pray that we will be able look ourselves in the face,
to look our children in the face, and to say with conviction: Yes, I helped
make it happen.