Senator Cory Bernardi stands with Israel:
I have always been a supporter of Israel.
It is a beacon of freedom and democracy in the Middle East. During a visit there a few years ago, I was struck by the resilience and optimism shown by the Israelis under very trying circumstances. The testing of their patience and resolve in the face of repeated attacks from terror group Hamas has since increased.
Most recently, missiles salvaged from the Libyan Islamist insurgency by the rulers of Gaza have been launched at major Israeli population centres – Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. This is an alarming escalation from the hundreds of home-made and rather ineffective rockets directed at Israel annually from within the Gaza Strip.
The cowards in Hamas responsible for these attacks usually store and launch their weapons of terror from within residential areas. This is so that any retaliatory strike will likely incur civilian casualties, which can be paraded before a sympathetic and often unquestioning press in an attempt to discredit the justifiable Israeli defence response.
This is a common tactic used in the propaganda war by terrorists. They view the loss of innocent civilian lives as just collateral damage that can be used to further advance their cause. In some instances, they will even target their own people in grotesque public displays of political violence.
This morning’s media carried one such event.
Senator Cory Bernardi is a Senator for South Australia.
