Israel Says "No More Messing Around"

The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip made a fateful error several years ago when they elected Hamas, a Palestinian terror organization, to lead government positions replacing the more peaceful Fatah movement. Hamas was aligned with the PLO, led by the twice awarded Time Man of the Year Yassar Arafat, who did more to inflame terrorism in the Middle East than any other person over a 40 year period. Hamas has been trouble for the Palestinians ever since that election, now ruling from a position of power, by harassing Israel through missile attacks, suicide bombers, and placing their people in harms way. They lob missiles at Israeli towns from inside the Gaza Strip and when Israel responds in kind, Hamas calls foul and the international community (read UN) froths at the mouth and tells Israel to knock it off. It's kind of like your little brother whacking you and when you punch him back he goes crying to Mom. Mom sympathizes with him and you get sent to your room.

Well, Israel is punching back now and doesn't care what Mom says. They have had enough and after Hamas launched missiles at the end of a cease-fire last week the Israelis have come back with a vengance and have launched air and missile strikes that have killed an estimated 400 and wounded 1,400. Palestinians are crying and the international community is in an uproar (the head of the UN has issued a statement that says the world failed to stop this tragedy and that Israel needs to cease operations immeadiately). Heh, nice try to place the blame somewhere else, spread that guilt around.

While I certainly don't like violence and don't advocate war, I can see where Israel is coming from. They voluntarily removed troops from the Gaza Strip, even though they knew what was coming within a couple of years. They were right. Hamas are cowards, the ruling body of the movement does not live in the Gaza Strip but in Damascus, Syria, safely behind thick walls and many guards. There they feel they can safely issue outrageous statements about how terrible Israel is and how repressed the Palestinian people are. They have called for an infatada for the third time in 8 years, don't know how well the others have worked out . . . President Bush and Clinton tried for a long time to broker peace in this area of the world but it is nearly always the Palestinians who broke the agreement and then blamed Israel for various infractions. President Bush issued a statement last week correctly blaming Hamas for the latest violence and called on them to stop the agression.

Meanwhile, Hamas has placed vital military and state security targets in residential areas so that when missiles do strike there seems to be a lot of collateral damage in the form of civilian casulties and wounded. When will the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip wake up and throw Hamas out? After all the victim-playing that Hamas is doing, they still continue to launch rockets at southern Israeli towns and villages.

What is even more aggravating is to see how some react to the situation and try to use it to further their own cause. Riots in European capitols have given Palestinians and their sympathizers an excuse to burn and run lawless, the UN is being given a platform to bray, and even a former US presidential candidate, Crazy Cynthia McKinney, tried to bring relief supplies to the Gaza Strip but her yacht was rammed. Go back to Georgia Cynthia, go help President Carter on the peanut farm. Israel has said they would treat Hamas with an "iron fist" but Gaza citizens with "kid gloves" and it has shown as they have let many supplies and aid through to the Gaza Strip from international relief agencies. Except for those that sympathize with Hamas, like Cynthia McKinney.

Let's pray that this conflict ends quickly with both sides coming to an agreement that they can live with. Read an interesting article by Jed Babbin about the comparison of Hamas/Israel to Iraq/US, he makes a lot of good points and proposes a tough outcome if we continue to allow state-sponsered terrorism.