Dr Charles Krauthammer in today’s Washington Post:
Moral Clarity in Gaza
At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible — also on both sides.
Which includes sending sending hundreds of trucks for humanitarian aid into Gaza.
It’s a recurring theme. Israel gave similar warnings to Southern Lebanese villagers before attacking Hezbollah in the Lebanon war of 2006. The Israelis did this knowing it would lose for them the element of surprise and cost the lives of their own soldiers.
That is the asymmetry of means between Hamas and Israel. But there is equal clarity regarding the asymmetry of ends. Israel has but a single objective in Gaza — peace: the calm, open, normal relations it offered Gaza when it withdrew in 2005. Doing something never done by the Turkish, British, Egyptian and Jordanian rulers of Palestine, the Israelis gave the Palestinians their first sovereign territory ever in Gaza.
What ensued? This is not ancient history. Did the Palestinians begin building the state that is supposedly their great national aim? No. No roads, no industry, no courts, no civil society at all. The flourishing greenhouses that Israel left behind for the Palestinians were destroyed and abandoned. Instead, Gaza’s Iranian-sponsored rulers have devoted all their resources to turning it into a terror base — importing weapons, training terrorists, building tunnels with which to kidnap Israelis on the other side. And of course firing rockets unceasingly.
The grievance? It cannot be occupation, military control or settlers. They were all removed in September 2005. There’s only one grievance and Hamas is open about it. Israel’s very existence.
Nor does Hamas conceal its strategy. Provoke conflict. Wait for the inevitable civilian casualties. Bring down the world’s opprobrium on Israel. Force it into an untenable cease-fire — exactly as happened in Lebanon. Then, as in Lebanon, rearm, rebuild and mobilize for the next round. Perpetual war. Since its raison d’etre is the eradication of Israel, there are only two possible outcomes: the defeat of Hamas or the extinction of Israel.
Little Green Footballs has graphics on mortar shelllings and rocket attacks fired into Israel for the past eight years since Hamas took over. Who in the media is showing this information?
Who in the media is familiar with the Covenant of hate?
UPDATE
Victor Davis Hanson writes on Surreal Gaza
Hamas with its serial rocket attacks on Israel interprets all of the above not as an opportunity for prosperity, but as a stage one for the great accomplishment of its generation—the absolute destruction of the Jewish state. Its agenda is clear and unambiguous, and apparently shared by millions of elites in the West itself, without whose support Hamas could not exist. The common theme of Western press coverage is the misery of Gaza, never the misery of Gaza as a product of the garrison-state mentality of Hamas’s radical Islamic vows to wage perennial war against Israel.
More information on humanitarian aid,
- Today (Wed.), 93 truckloads with 2,500 tons of food and medical supplies were transferred to Gaza.
- Since the beginning of the operation in Gaza Saturday, 6,500 tons of food and medicine were transferred to Gaza.
- The World Food Program has informed Israel that they will not be resuming shipment of food into Gaza becausetheir warehouses are at full capacity, with enough supplies for at least 2 weeks.
- 12 Palestinians from Gaza entered Israel today (Wed.) for medical treatment.
Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice is on a televised press conference right now. “We are working on a cease fire that would not allow… Hamas to continue firing rockets.”
In the media, a Fox reporter calls Palestinian legal adviser Diana Buttu on her lies:
Political Vindication posts a 1974interview of Golda Meier by Oriana Fallaci that resonates even more today.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told the press that the Hamas terrorists are not allowing the wounded out of Gaza to be treated:
Eternity Road looks at Article 11 of the Hamas Charter.
Nice round up.