Has Israel gone too far?

To judge by much of the world’s response to Israel’s actions since being besieged by Hamas rocket attacks is to answer in the affirmative. But while much of the media and political Left continue to present the radical Islamists as “David” and Israel as “Goliath,” a closer look shows that Israel waited as long as it could before responding to an enemy whose sole reason to exist is to ensure that the Jewish State won’t.

For months, Hamas thugs in Gaza have fired missiles and mortars into southern Israel, subjecting hundreds of thousands of Israelis to a campaign of 24-hour terror. This was done in clear violation of an Egyptian-negotiated cease-fire to which Hamas had agreed. Hamas ended the truce even against the wishes of some Muslim heads of state. Then after pounding Israel for a week, and after Israel warned it would respond, Hamas did nothing but continue bombing, targeting civilian centers across southern Israel.

So while the world collectively yawned during months of Hamas attacks against Israel, when Israel did what any sovereign nation would do under the same circumstances — striking back at those responsible for the aggression — it was met with a chorus of condemnation. The American Left is planning to hold “Gaza solidarity” rallies today in 26 states; thousands demonstrated in Washington D.C.; protestors met outside the Israeli embassy in London; and 2,000 Germans demonstrated against Israel in Berlin.

The Israel-bashers argue that, since most rockets and mortars fired by Hamas into Israel have missed their targets, Israel should not respond effectively. But under international law, any nation can respond at a level sufficient to meet the threat. Hamas rocket attacks are destroying normal life and have made daily routines impossible for countless Israelis whose children cannot go to school. Israel has every legal and moral right to demolish the terror infrastructure that supports the daily rocket attacks on its people.

Of course, we’ve seen this movie before. The same scenario has been played out numerous times. In August 2005, Israel spent billions of dollars relocating thousands of its own citizens from settlements in Gaza, only for that act of beneficence to be interpreted by Hamas as validation of their brutal terrorism. Gaza was transformed into, in Benyamin Netanyahu’s words, “a huge base for terror.” In February 2007, Hamas used Gaza to launch thousands of rockets that hit civilians in Ashkelon.

And, just as night follows day, each time Israel responds with force, it is condemned for its “disproportionate response.” This time around, more than 300 Palestinians have been killed, against four Israelis. But here’s why. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas of the world, and Hamas is infamous for hiding among its constituents, using them as human shields. Weapons are being stored in mosques. The only university in Gaza has turned its labs over to the terrorists, who are using them to make bombs and mortars. These cowards intentionally set up their bases near schools and hospitals to maximize the number of casualties to gain sympathy in the media.

Gaza is hell, but not because of Israel. Its conditions are unbearable because its people elected Hamas — an organization with no economic plan, no educational ideas, nothing to offer at all except to kill the Jews, kill the infidel and destroy Israel.

Gaza, in recent years, has been turned into “Gazastan,” an Islamic republic that educates its own children to seek death in martyrdom operations. Gaza TV airs children’s shows that teach six and seven year-olds to kill Jews. The Gaza government just instituted a new legal code based on Sharia Islamic law that permits crucifixion for certain crimes against Islam.

Hamas exists to wreak havoc and destroy Israel. And it has acted accordingly since its inception. Between 2000 and 2004, Hamas was responsible for the deaths of 400 Israelis, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Hamas charter states that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” And, “[t]here is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.” Hamas also is a proxy of Iran, whose president denies the Holocaust and vows to “wipe Israel off the map.”

Tuesday, Israel rejected international pressure to end air strikes against Hamas, which continues to hit Israeli civilian centers across Southern Israel. Though the number of Israeli casualties may be small, Hamas doesn’t really mind if its missiles fail to hit their targets. As long as Israel hits its targets, and as a consequence more Palestinian civilians are killed, Hamas is content, because images of dead Palestinians helps Hamas in the eyes of its real target, public opinion.

The New Year will bring nothing new to Gaza so long as Hamas is allowed to perpetuate the same old vicious cycle of provocation, reprisal and international outrage against Israel.

On Saturday, January 10, 2009, a large rally and march took place in San Francisco to protest Israel’s invasion of Gaza. The event was one of a series of similar events held in various cities around the country on the same day, and was organized by ANSWER along with several other far-left, Arab and Muslim groups.

http://zombietime.com/gaza_war_protest/

During her recent trip to the Middle East, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for having taken “important steps” against terrorism.

This statement, in addition to others made by senior members of the Bush administration, has produced considerable disquiet among those committed to fighting terror and devoted to the realization of a secure and sovereign Jewish state.

In the past, the Bush administration publicly acknowledged that Israel should not be expected to negotiate with the late PA leader Yasser Arafat because he was duplicitous and remained committed to employing armed violence as a principal vehicle by which to achieve his goals. Yet today it maintains that Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, is a worthy partner with whom Israel can achieve a settlement.

Would this were the case. The facts on the ground, however, tell a different story.
Certainly, Abbas is more diplomatically astute than was Arafat, but in reality they are birds of a feather. Never at any time has Abbas declared his objection to terror on moral grounds. While he repeats the mantra that terror is counter to Palestinian interests, he at once unequivocally declares that he has no intention of dismantling the terrorist infrastructure, including even elements of Fatah, the terrorist subsidiary of his own organization.

Abbas has pleaded with those who organize suicide bombings – Hamas and Islamic Jihad – to take part in his government, and has even invited Hamas terrorists to join his security forces. Would President George W. Bush authorize his administration to negotiate with a leader who was trying to enroll Osama bin Laden’s killers to join his army?

Following the London terror attacks, Prime Minister Tony Blair stated it was a delusion to believe socioeconomic status alone was responsible for the growth of terror. It is an evil ideology, he said, which breeds in the religious, educational and social structure of certain societies which act as incubators for terror. And the fact of the matter is that the PA today remains one of the world’s greatest breeding grounds for transforming human beings into lethal weapons.

DESPITE THE culture of terror perpetuated by the PA, the US provides substantial grants to the PA and recently authorized for it a major portion of the $3 billion annual package being provided by the G8 of industrialized nations. It is troubling that these grants were not accompanied by a caveat that the PA first be obliged to dismantle the terror infrastructure, end the incitement and ensure these funds be monitored in a transparent manner to guarantee they will not once more be funneled into terror activities or the secret bank accounts of corrupt Palestinian officials.

It is thus incumbent upon Bush to ensure that the provision of these funds is made conditional on the PA undertaking corrective measures to curtail terror.

The road map, to which Israel has committed itself, visualizes the goal of a Palestinian state existing peacefully side by side with Israel. But as Israel withdraws from Gaza and northern Samaria, terrorism is again escalating. Israeli civilians have been subjected to mortar and rocket attacks, and suicide bombers have been dispatched to commit carnage and create mayhem.

Under such circumstances the creation of what could only be described as a terror state controlled by virtual warlords would only send a message to terrorists the world over that terror does indeed pay.

In his efforts to reassure the Israeli public, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been quoting Bush that Israel should be entitled to retain the major settlement blocs in the context of a final settlement. However, Rice has recently been giving particular emphasis to the fact that this would depend on Palestinian consent, which will undoubtedly not be forthcoming.

It is critical for the president to voice unqualified support for Israel’s retention of these settlement blocs, which are of existential importance to the Jewish state’s very future.

MEANWHILE, Abbas continues to reiterate that no solution can ever be found to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse unless Israel agrees to the “right of return” of the descendents of the Arabs who fled the region during the 1948 war. This is more an ideological than a political position, reflecting a determination never to come to terms with Israel as a sovereign Jewish state.

“The right of return” is, in fact, a prescription for the demographic destruction of the Jewish state. Accordingly, it would be highly constructive for the president to forthrightly and explicitly restate that there is no validity to the Palestinian demand for the right of return.
Israel needs the moral and political backing the US alone can provide.

In view of the domestic turmoil Israel is enduring with the displacement of thousands of citizens from their homes, and due to the increasing statements emanating from figures in the Bush administration which might imply a return to the discredited policies of moral equivalency (whereby the distinction between the terrorists and their victims is frequently obfuscated), this is the appropriate moment for Bush to speak out and convey words of reassurance to the Israeli public.

This would, furthermore, also be a good time to send a message to the world reiterating that the US will never come to terms with those who have still to learn that the appeasement of evil and terror is a prescription for disaster.

The writer is president of American Values. This piece is derived from a letter to Bush co-signed by the writer and Isi Leibler.