PHOTO: Ido Aharoni, the consul general for Israel in New York. (photo courtesy Israeli Tourism.)

The Israel Ministry of Tourism scheduled a reception in New York City to honor Haim Gutin, who is returning to Israel after a highly successful four-year term as head of Israel Tourism in New York, but by the day of the reception violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza had escalated to a crisis point and the celebratory mood originally intended for the event had evaporated.

In the words of Geoffrey Weill, who served as master of ceremonies of the event, what had been conceived as a celebration had been replaced with something much more somber.

Though the reception was attended by American friends of Gutin from as far as Texas and Oklahoma, it took place after the FAA had grounded all flights from U.S. carriers to Israel for a 24-hour period that stretched into two days before being lifted late Wednesday night. The discussions and speeches in the room at Bnai Zion in New York were on events some 5,000 miles eastward.

Ido Aharoni, the consul general for Israel in New York, addressed the gathering, reflecting “how we see things.”

“This escalation was forced on us by Hamas,” he said.

Aharoni said the military operation in Gaza is “probably … the most transparent military operation in history.”

Israeli defense forces are doing “unprecedented things” to protect the innocent, said Aharoni, including dropping leaflets from the air and allowing 100 trucks a day to enter Gaza with food and medical supplies.

“You will not find in military history a similar case,” he said, “where a country is actively aiding the other side during time of confrontation with an uncompromising and brutal enemy that is not interested in compromise. The enemy is interested in our destruction, not only the destruction of the State of Israel, but if you read the Hamas charter it talks about the elimination of Jews, not just Israel.”

Hamas was able to create two systems that threaten the existence of Israel, said Aharoni. One is the rocket system that has been firing rockets into Israeli air space, and the other is the tunnel system that was designed to go underground into Israeli territory.

“We discovered that those tunnels are not only fully equipped with electricity and Internet and communications systems, they are also reinforced by hundreds of tons of concrete. And they are actually not meant to serve as smuggling tunnels but rather as offensive tunnels…. It’s a tunnel that penetrates Israeli territory underground and the main purpose of this tunnel is to allow Hamas terrorists to pop out in Israeli territory, in the case of Kibbutz Sufa only 300 meters from the kibbutz, and to wreak havoc…. What could have happened, God forbid, if 100 terrorists had popped out of one of the tunnels and captured an entire community, an entire kibbutz…”

Aharoni evoked images of Washington D.C. when a sniper picked off victims one at a time, terrorizing the city.

“I don’t know if you remember, but I remember vividly because I had to go to D.C. at the time,” said Aharoni. “People wouldn’t leave their homes because they were so terrified. Gas stations were empty at night in all of the Greater D.C. area. And this was just one sniper. Imagine what would happen in any urban center in Western Europe if 2,000 rockets were launched against an urban center in less than two weeks. So the rocket system imposes an unprecedented onslaught on civilian populations.”

Aharoni also discussed the economic ramifications of the conflict, calling it “devastating to Israel’s economy.”

“It affects cancellations; it affects trade relations; it affects investors; it traumatizes people. Hundreds of thousands of children instead of spending time in summer camps are spending their days and nights in bomb shelters. For that specific reason we had to go in. Air strikes were limited in what they could achieve and therefore we had to put troops on the ground, heavy machinery, technological equipment that will allow us to tackle effectively those two systems.”

The conflict with Hamas is “not a national conflict… not a territorial conflict … it is part and parcel of what is known as the clash between civilizations. It is similar to the conflict the United states has with Al Qaida. Hamas is not interested in Palestinian statehood. Hamas is not interested in the nation state solution to the Palestinian problem. At the end of the day Hamas views the Palestinian Authority, which has been our partner in negotiations for the last 21 years, as their enemy no less than they view Israel as their enemy.”

Aharoni closed by expressing his gratitude to the U.S. for its support of Israel.