This is not 2006.
In Israel’s second war with Lebanon, arguments were advanced that Lebanon’s physical integrity should not have been breached since the aggression against Israel was committed not by the government but by Hezbollah. Yet under international norms when a government acquiesces in the violent acts of a group operating from its territory it is equally responsible. Hairs cannot be split this time.
Hamas is the governing authority of Gaza and it has committed aggression against the sovereignty of Israel in the name of itself and of the political jurisdiction of Gaza.
Under every international legal doctrine, including that of the UN’s own “self-help”, a nation is entitled to defend itself when the international community and international organizations cannot, or will not, act. To those who would argue that Israel’s self-defense is not proportional, they should be aware that proportionality – though very much in vogue with politically correct talking heads – is not, and has never been, part of any normative international legal order. From Tucker to Oppenheim to Stone, it will not be found. But let us indulge the apologists of terror for a moment.
Would it be proportional for Israel to bomb kindergartens in Gaza as Hamas does in Israel?
Would it be proportional to launch missiles at hospitals?
Would it be proportional to launch missiles without warning indiscriminately into civilian areas?
Maybe the advocates of proportionality are right.
Maybe Israel should stop giving warnings of its raids.
Maybe Israel should stop targeting Hamas infrastructure and bomb civilian areas.
Maybe Israel should stop sending aid and taking Gazan wounded to Israel’s hospitals.
To those who would argue that this attack on Hamas is futile because Israel did not “win” its war against Hezbollah, let them know they are wrong. Israel miscalculated in 2006 and waited four weeks to send in ground troops. Israel thought it could do the job with air power alone. Yet when the army was finally sent in, 20,000 Israeli troops took the Hezbollah controlled areas of south Lebanon in 36 hours suffering only 19 casualties. And guess what? In almost 3 years Hezbollah rockets have been silent against Israel. Though fellow travelers of terror like to snatch defeat from Israel’s victory, Israel win its battle with Hezbollah. Israel has learned its lesson though and this time sent in the army early.
Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa Brigades and all the other proxies of Iranian murder have but one common aim. The destruction of Israel and the killing of all “infidels”, Christian and Jew. It is written in their charters and they should be taken at their word. They care not a whit for their own people because their power derives from the culture of death that they perpetrate against their own citizens using state faith as a weapon of submission. Their challenge is not only to Israel, but to the west at large. The Islamists that are marching in western cities are directed by shrewd and murderous operatives of regimes spawned in the dark ages of history. Israel is but the frontline of civilization. And Israel is once again fighting the west’s war first.
No nation can sit idly by while 7000 rockets over six years are hurled at it. Even Egypt closed its borders to the murderous Gazan regime. Journalists speak of Hamas as the duly elected government of Gaza. Yet they conveniently forget to mention that Hamas only got elected because they killed or drove out most of their Fatah opponents prior to the vote. It was a putsch as brutal as any the world has seen in the post war era.
To those who argue for cease-fire and negotiations, let them explain how to negotiate with an enemy that swore peace if Israel withdrew from Gaza, yet attacked with greater vehemence once Israel did. To those who advocate a truce, let them answer what to do with an enemy that broke the truce brokered not by the west but by their Arab cousins in Egypt. To those who advance claims for compromise and common ground, let them respond how to find common ground with an enemy that interprets every peaceful gesture as weakness and an invitation for attack.
It has been said that Hamas seeks to rebuild Gaza. Then why did it destroy all the infrastructure, waterworks, greenhouses and industrial plant left by Israel? It has been suggested that Hamas merely needs funding and it will be peaceful. Then why is it that even the Arab League, flush with petrodollars, has given nothing. The answers are simple. Hamas willingly lives in destruction and desolation because it abides by the creed of division, discord and death. And with this creed it happily terrorizes its own people and the world. This is the mirror of the “caliphate” that these theocratic tyrants and their allies would impose on the free world.
President Kennedy pronounced in his inaugaural address that “civility is not a sign of weakness and sincerity is always subject to proof.” Hamas has always taken civility for weakness and its sincerity has never been proven. It is time to eradicate this evil from the earth.
