OPINION

Isoc's role in society

Re: "Isoc brass return fire following criticism of unit", (BP, Nov 5).

The spokesman of Isoc claimed its main duty is to protect the nation, religion and monarchy. What a weird understanding! I served once in the military and I always understood that our duty is to protect the people; that's the main and only purpose.

The spokesman's view is especially weird as Buddhism at the very end is actually no religion. It teaches you to understand yourself and the world. There is no god, nothing to worship and pray to -- that is all mumbo-jumbo. Understand yourself and the world -- quite a challenging task anyhow, that's it. No armed forces necessary to protect that.

Re: "Writing for rights", (PostBag, Nov 2) & "Gaza needs coverage", (PostBag, Oct 30).

I do agree that Israel can seem to act "harshly" to some reactionist people with far-left vies who protest anything and everything. They act like birds when they don't want to see what's happening around them, closing their eyes for their comfort.

I wish Eric Bahrt would accompany Israeli soldiers when they are on street patrol to protect peaceful Palestinians on the streets of the terrorist-filled Gaza Strip and face radicalised youngsters with stones, hand grenades and Molotov cocktails.

In Gaza, where the terrorist Hamas rules with an iron fist and suppresses peaceful Palestinians, 40% of the population, including 14-year-old boys, have been radicalised. The boys were trained to be jihadists and look at Israel -- even babies or grandmas -- as simply kafers.

I wish Mr Bahrt was aware the terrorist Hamas in Gaza controls information, ramps up surveillance even within Palestinian families and punishes whistleblowers or opponents by using Sharia law in a barbaric way.

Normal and peaceful Palestinians in Gaza do not dare oppose the random and rampant corruption or do not dare to oppose the building of tunnels and the transport of rockets and the storage of arms and ammunition under residential and hospital buildings.

I must remind Mr Bahrt that the terrorist Hamas doesn't represent common Palestinians and nor do normal Palestinians support Hamas, whose top leaders are living elsewhere to counter Saudi Arabia's influence.

In Hitler's Germany, it was the Germans who suffered. In Lenin and Stalin's Soviet Union, it was the Russians who suffered. And it is Palestinians who are suffering under the terrorist Hamas in Gaza.

Countries like Saudi Arabia the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt and Morocco all agreed that Israel should exist.

Yet the terrorists do not think of the consequences. They simply live for today. So, it's time to wake up.

Re: "Israeli troops encircle Gaza", (World, Nov 4).

Could sacrificing Gaza be an extreme diversionary tactic by Hamas intelligence, used since the days of the Caesars, to achieve its ends? The blustering Israeli government has already been prompted to move the bulk of its armed forces into hostile territory, leaving the country more vulnerable to possible future incursions by Hamas and subsequent chaos internally.

This is not implausible given the group's ruthless Oct 7 attack that penetrated supposedly impregnable Israeli defences, much to the country's chagrin.

Never underestimate your enemy, as Sun Tzu underscores in The Art of War written 2,500 years ago.