Hamas opted for war, and they're getting it
Israel's enemies -- and even many of its supporters -- are urging restraint, ignoring the fact that Israelis have been displaying remarkable restraint....
...No nation can be expected to put up with such attacks for long, yet Israel held its fire for months. But when Hamas announced a few weeks ago it would not renew the truce and then stepped up its rocket attacks, Israel could no longer ignore the obvious. A full scale war was being renewed against it by an Islamic jihad that declares that Israel has no right to exist, and is sworn to destroy it....
Why Israel Struck
...Besides halting the rocket attacks against its territory, with this offensive against Hamas Israel is also breaking the circle of terror, with which Iran has surrounded it. Hezbollah, Iran’s ally in southern Lebanon across from Israel’s northern border launched a similar rocket campaign in 2006 that resulted in a full-scale Israeli offensive. More than four thousand rockets were launched into Israel during that conflict, which Hezbollah has meanwhile made good in expectation of the war’s next round.
Like Hezbollah, Hamas is also sponsored by Iran. According to intelligence experts, Iran has spent large amounts of money to arm and train Hamas, supplying the Sunni terrorist organization with Hezbollah advisors. Besides its ultimate goal of destroying Israel, Iran is using Hezbollah’s and Hamas’s aggression against the Jewish state to enhance its prestige in the Muslim world vis-a-vis Sunni Muslim regimes it wants to undermine....
The Necessity of Israel
Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons. -- Associated Press, Dec. 27
WASHINGTON -- Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.
Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis -- 6,464 launched from Gaza in the last three years -- deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people. ...
Cease terror, not cease-fire
...Hamas leaders ordered the cross-border attack against Israel in June 2006 in which two IDF soldiers were killed and Gilad Schalit was taken hostage. They grabbed power away from Fatah the following year, transforming Gaza into a spoiling-for-a-fight Islamist stronghold. Hundreds of Palestinians have lost their lives as a result of Hamas's warmongering.
They locked themselves into the old Arab mantra of "no recognition, no negotiation and no peace." They refused to honor agreements the PLO signed with Israel. They oppose the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. And they've kept Gaza an impoverished basket-case. ...
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