Israel should and has the right to exist.

It should and must defend its people.

The massacre of babies, the killing and abduction of Israelis by Hamas is abominable and should be condemned.

With over 1,000 of its people killed, the retribution meted out on Gaza, a city of 2.2 million, is a forgone conclusion.

For more than 2,500 years, Israel has been subjected to atrocities as different nations and kingdoms have sought to wipe out its people.

The history of this world has been unkind to the people of Israel and they must not forget that, they must always remember and be on their guard against the persecution of their brothers and sisters.

Nebuchadnezzar lay siege to the Kingdom of Judah, destroying the Temple of Jerusalem and placed some 20,000 Jews in captivity who were in exile for 70 years

The Romans under Titus sacked Jerulsaleum in 70 CE, killing around 40,000 Jews and burned the Temple down to the ground.

Under Hitler and Nazi Germany, the world stood by and witnessed the genoicide of 6 million Jews.

Many were placed in gas chambers as part of what was called “ The Final Solution” in an attempt to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth.

Today we have those who say it never happened, it was all a fiction.

The Jews murdered in Europe during Hitler’s Nazi regime are the forebears of the people who live in Israel today.

The persecution still continues.

The Six-Day War in 1967 saw Israel having to face off against a coalition of neighbouring Arab states (Egypt, Syria and Jordan) as a result of unresolved tensions from the 1949 Armistice Agreements.

Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood is reported to have said in 1948, “If the Jewish state becomes a fact, and this is realised by the Arab peoples they will drive the Jews who live in their midst into the sea.”

Israel must not and cannot be driven into the sea.

During the 1972 Munich Olympics, Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestine’s Black September Group. The retribution was swift sending the message don’t mess with us.

In 1976, 103 Israelis were hijacked from a French airliner by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Red Army Faction and then flown to Entebbe, Uganda where the terrorists made demands declaring the Israeli hostages lives forfeit.

Israeli soldiers in a daring raid rescued the hostages.

The Israeli people have always had to fight just to survive. One can understand why Israel takes the position it does and why Gaza will come under siege and be brought to order.

Like the attack on the twin towers in the US, in 2001, Israel did not see it coming. It could not contemplate such horrors on its own soil. It is clear this was a planned attack and it will now act expeditiously as it looks to break the back of Hamas and extinguish any ideas that Palestinians can put a chokehold on Israel.

Beheading children and hanging bodies at the Kfar Aza kibbutz is blood-curdling . That is hard to forgive.

The killing of young people enjoying themselves at a music festival now means Mossad and the Israeli Army will have to be more vigilant.

There are those who say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stance is too hard, that he must seek a diplomatic solution. But like his predecessors, David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, his primary concern must be the protection and existence of Israel and its people. This is what his leadership has to be about and he must turn a deaf ear to those who are looking to persuade him otherwise.