I have to push back. Mr. Mannan (Protect Innocents, CT Post, Oct. 26, A13) claims to condemn the escalation of violence at the same time he makes excuses for it.

Hamas was elected to run Gaza by the Arabs who fashion themselves Palestinians. Instead of spending billions in aid on building a Singapore on the Mediterranean, they spent it growing an army. Hamas did not attack Israel with sticks and clubs.

Israel might have a more powerful army, but missiles are not aimed at Gaza except in response to Islamic Aggression. No missile would fall in Gaza if Hamas had not chosen to attack Israel.

Israel does not, and has never, targeted civilians. This cruelty lays on only one side of this conflict. In fact, Israel goes out of its way to protect civilians. Cutting off water and electricity actually does this. Hamas will not run out of water or power, but those living in the buildings above their operations just might move out of harm's way if they don't have these basics.

Please tell me about the innocent: the mother and father phoned by their Hamas son who boasted that he killed ten Jews, the UNRWA schools that teach children to want to exterminate Jews, the unique population of refugees that grows (where is the growing population of refugees of the ten million displaced by World War II?), the summer camps that train those who can barely hold a gun how to fire one and slit Jewish throats-one ambitious child says he wants to be a doctor and a shahid, the mothers who hand out candy when Jews are killed; the innocent who came in after Hamas to scavenge whatever was valuable from Be'eri.

This is not to say there are not innocents, but it seems difficult to find them. Some do try to escape, but who is to blame for Hamas blocking their retreat south out of harms way? Who acts with iniquity toward the Palestinians?

Where are the Palestinians who say “we are not for this Hamas”? And if these innocent Palestinians are so bothered by Hamas, where are those who would aid Israel in removing this plague that makes both Israel and the “innocent Palestinians” so miserable? Instead, they organize all over the western world to call for genocide, and Mr. Mannan says nothing.

We can repeat again Golda Meir's exhortation: “If the Arabs put down their guns, there would be no more fighting. If the Israelis put down theirs, there would be no more Israel.”

If you come at me with a knife, I am justified in using a gun to stop you. The fact that I might be better armed does not make me the aggressor, and it does not make me cruel.

David R. Herz, Republican

Candidate for Mayor of Bridgeport