It simply doesn't make sense...

About a week ago, I came across a few news articles regarding the latest conflict in Gaza. As I kept reading, it was unclear why Israel started bombing. From there, the logical assumption was that the bombings came out of the blue. I was confused at first, but then I finally stumbled upon a single sentence which stated that Israel was actually responding to Hamas’s attacks. Apparently, Hamas broke the peace treaty and had already attacked Israel six times before Israel finally retaliated. I was appalled that all of this was described in once sentence, and the article resumed to blaming Israel for killing innocent civilians. Were the Israelis who were killed due to suicide bombers, blown up schools and buses not innocent civilians? It still amazes me how easily people seem to ignore the fact that Hamas has dropped 6400 rockets, bombs, and motor shells on Israel since the beginning of this conflict. Are people expecting Israel to sit and just accept these attacks without retaliation?
Hamas fired more than 40 rockets at Israel’s southern towns and cities on January 1st, 2009 alone. One Katyusha rocket was dropped onto an eight-story apartment building in the Israeli port city of Ashdod. It surprises me that Hamas is a terrorist organization, yet people are sympathizing with them. Not many people know that Israel is taking in Palestinian civilians from the Gaza area to avoid unnecessary casualties. This led me to wonder why this aspect is not talked about in the news. It simply doesn’t make any sense to side with a terrorist organization.
I finally came to the conclusion that had the media portrayed facts about both sides, then maybe American citizens would not be so quick to blame Israel for being inhumane. I have asked students at Berkeley, UCLA, U.C. Santa Cruz, S.F. State, Stanford, Yale, and Harvard if they could name positive and negative facts about Israel. It was fairly easy for them to say things like, “Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian women and children.” (As if Hamas and Palestinian suicide bombers take extra precaution to specifically target Israeli combatants). However, they had a much harder time coming up with positive facts such as: Israel took in the most Sudanese refugees of the Sudan genocide. Or that Israel is currently providing more food and medical aid to Gaza than Palestine or any other country for that matter. It is beyond me why these facts are not written about as often as for example, the number of people who were killed under Israeli fire. Aren’t humanitarian acts just as important to publicize as acts of retaliation? It simply doesn’t make sense…