A Terrorist State

What is the definition of a terrorist state?

Well, for starters how about a fanatic theistic political cabal whose edicts stricture every facet of peoples' lives, instructing them on pain of punishment how they must agree to have their children educated - as recruits for future terrorist operations - how women must garb themselves, how they must agree to allow those who rule them to lob high-powered rockets across the border into a neighbouring state, from the crowded confines of their towns.

Since Hamas in Gaza does all of that, added to the fact that their signal purpose is to destroy the State of Israel, and to that end they spare no suicide bombers or rockets or smuggling of arms and armaments to supplement their already-burgeoning stores of weaponry, they must, ipso facto, be considered a terrorist state.

That same terrorist state, when faced with the result of their constant rocket attacks on Israeli border towns, clamoured for the international community and the United Nations to stop Israel's defensive foray into Gaza to quell the incessant attacks.

And the world responded with alacrity, condemning Israel for conducting a 'disproportionate' response to the killing and wounding and traumatizing of their citizens by returning rocket fire into Gaza from whence it emanated. And since Hamas fighters routinely and deliberately fire from the crowded confines of city streets, from schools and from mosques, when fire is returned, civilians, used as human shields by Hamas, are wounded and they die.

What is the definition of a terrorist? One who inspires terror. Armies are trained to battle. Soldiers know they will face an enemy and that they must comport themselves as the military has trained them to do, for the purpose of protecting their country and the civilian population. They also know that in accord with international law, let alone their own domestic judicial practices and law, it is immoral and unlawful to target civilians.

Hamas institutionally targets civilians. And so it was, yet again, that a rocket was fired into Israel and a school bus was hit by a rocket, its driver and a 16-year-old student critically wounded. This is Hamas's response to Israel's targeting of its militants who seek to destroy the country, and who are caught while they fire off rockets, and while they transport missiles and artillery from Sudan through Egypt into Gaza.

All countries have obligations under UN Security Council resolutions to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition. Which has not stopped Hamas from receiving said illicit arms from Syria and from Iran, which are terrorist countries themselves, sponsoring Hamas and Hezbollah, two creature militias they have spawned, all sharing the aspiration to destroy Israel.

And Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, concerned for Gazan Palestinians, urges the West to intervene "to stop this aggression", referring to the Israel Defence Force's response to Hamas's jihadist attacks against Israel, not the use of an advanced anti-tank weapon in an attack against civilians.