Right and wrong seem so clear to me about some things. Israel and its struggle against terrorists and anti-Semites is one of those things.
Israel is a civilized nation with civilized people who attempt to handle situations in a civilized manner. They have carved an oasis of faith, intellect, community and power out of a hostile scrap of earth surrounded by seas of people who want them slaughtered.
Israel cares what the world thinks about them, and so they have held back while Hamas terrorists have lobbed more than 8000 rockets at Israeli citizens during the past 12-months.
Finally - finally - Israel has unleashed its fury, but has made every attempt to target the terrorists and not innocents.
The Hamas, like Hezbollah before them, hide behind the skirts of their mothers, sisters and wives; the cribs of their babies. And when civilians are killed, the terrorists take photo 'journalists' to view bodies amidst the rubble so that the world will cry foul and point the finger at Israel.
I've listened to CNN do a body count: 388 dead 'Palestinians' (not terrorists), versus 4 dead Israelis and bemoaning the power of the Israeli response. Are they counting the dead hit by those 8000 rockets?
The world community wants the Israelis to pull back; ease up; have a more reasoned response.
What, exactly, is a reasoned response to terrorists who don't honor truces? Who want an entire country destroyed? What would France's reasoned response be if Germany was lobbing missiles across its borders and killing its citizens?
Can you imagine Americans sitting idly by while another nation bombarded it daily with Russian and Iranian missiles, terrorizing and killing its people? We saw what our 'reasoned' response was to 9/11.
And if I hear one more person bemoan the poor, oppressed Palestinians, I'm going to - well - at the very least roll my eyes. No one is oppressing the Palestinians but the Palestinians. They demean themselves when they blame the Israelis for their lack of accomplishment. The Israelis have done in sixty years what the Palestinians haven't in centuries: create a successful population. And the funding for both from outside sources, when it's all added up, isn't that disparate.
The curious question for me is why Hamas provoked this confrontation with Israel at this time by stepping up its bombardment. Are they trying to keep Israel from voting in a hardliner like Netanyahu in its February elections? Do they want to maintain the status quo in Israel with a government they feel won't seriously go after them until they're decimated?
I hope, if that's the case, they've miscalculated.
Good luck, my little Israel.
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