Someone was truly asleep at the switch last night to allow this story be printed. Fair, balanced, in depth, brings up different issues, and, oh, yeah, is not painting Israel as the bad guy. Israel Reminds Foes That It Has Teeth
Israel’s military operation in Gaza is aimed primarily at forcing Hamas to end its rocket barrages and military buildup. But it has another goal as well: to expunge the ghost of its flawed 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and re-establish Israeli deterrence.
OK, that part is kinda dumb. Not sure that it is meant to expunge the ghost, and deterrence against the hard line Islamists has never really worked.
On the second day of the offensive, which has already killed hundreds and is devastating Hamas’s resources, Israeli commanders on Sunday were lining up tanks and troops at the border. But they were also insisting that they did not intend to reoccupy the coastal strip of 1.5 million Palestinians or to overthrow the Hamas government there.
This is because whatever might replace Hamas — anarchy, for example — could in fact be worse for Israel’s security. So the goal, as stated by a senior military official, is “to stop the firing against our civilians in the south and shape a different and new security situation there.â€
This means another peace treaty with Hamas, but one that has more specific terms than the one that ended 10 days ago. Such a concrete goal, however, should not obscure the fact that Israel has a larger concern — it worries that its enemies are less afraid of it than they once were, or should be. Israeli leaders are calculating that a display of power in Gaza could fix that.
That is wise. The groups that keep attacking Israel are not as afraid, but, the Times misses one of the main points for the “why:” namely, because Leftists groups and governments around the world rarely, if ever, condemn the attacks on Israel by jihadis, but, will condemn Israel in a heartbeat over every minor issue. Groups like Hamas know that they can pretty much get away with anything they want, without worrying about condemnation, and they rarely care if Israel attacks back, because they know people will complain, and Hamas hides its infrastructure, weapons caches, and fighters behind civilians, which Israel tries not to hit.
The risk to Israel in Gaza seems of a parallel nature — that if the operation fails or leaves Hamas in the position of scrappy survivor or even somehow perceived victor, it could then dominate Palestinian politics over the more conciliatory and pro-Western Fatah movement for years to come. Since Hamas, like Hezbollah, is committed to Israel’s destruction, that could pose a formidable strategic challenge.
Hamas is going to be considered the victor by those on the Left no matter what. Israel will always be considered a terrorist nation and the bad guy by them. Perhaps if they would start condemning Hamas and other Islamist groups, and realizing that they are the ones who usually start it, they would not feel so emboldended to attack Israel at will.
You know what would help? If the international community would find the billions that Arafat had stashed away and spread out to the Palestinian people.
