John Kerry Arrives In Middle East: Can He Convince Hamas To Stop The Rockets?
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has a difficult task ahead of him as he arrives in the war-torn middle east in an effort to arrange a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Having done the rounds recently on American talk shows, such as CNN’s State of the Union, ABC’s This Week and CBS’ Face the Nation, Kerry arrived in Cairo on Monday, where he will try to broker the Egyptian ceasefire proposal, which Israel accepted, but Hamas rejected out-of-hand.
Kerry’s job will be to persuade the extreme terror factions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, among others, to stop firing their barrages of rockets on Israeli citizens, something they have been doing relentlessly for the best part of two weeks in the present skirmish, and spasmodically over the past seven years.
The Israelis say they were left with no choice but to retaliate with pinpoint airstrikes in an effort to destroy the rocket launching pads, manufacturing and storage facilities, and the rockets themselves. They claim that any country in the world would do the same.
The Israeli Defence Forces have posted videos showing them dropping leaflets across Gaza, which they follow up with text messages and phone calls in Arabic, warning residents of an imminent airstrike in their region and urging them to flee.
But Hamas, which is an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood, cynically uses its population as human shields, ordering woman and children to remain in their houses, under fear of torture or death, then crying to the world about alleged Israeli war crimes.
In saying that, the Palestinians have seen over 400 deaths and many more injured, and even though at least half of those killed were terrorists, the rest were woman and children.
John Kerry will be bringing America’s message to the Middle East, namely, that Israel, like any sovereign state in the world, has an unquestionable right to protect itself and its citizens in any way it can, even if that does mean the tragic loss of innocent lives.
As Kerry told ABC’s This Week: “It’s ugly. War is ugly, and bad things are going to happen,” adding on CNN’s State of the Union that Hamas must “step up and show a level of reasonableness, and they need to accept the offer of a cease-fire.”
It remains to be seen whether or not Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to the Middle East will be successful and achieve its goal of restoring calm to the region for both the Israeli and Palestinian sides.
