Lessons for the World From a New Gaza War
Update 2: Perhaps Hamas was hoping for a spectacular provocation. After Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil arrived for a visit to the Gaza Strip, November 15, Hamas launched a barrage of rockets and mortars at Israel, perhaps trying to provoke an Israeli counterattack that might shake up or even injure the Egyptian leader and get Cairo to escalate its involvement in the war.
Update 1: A few sirens went off in Tel Aviv around 6:30 PM, November 15 — not the whole system or the one outside my window but those a few blocks away — and didn’t stay on very long. Then there were two loud but short booms, the sound of anti-rocket missiles being fired. Rumors followed.
This being the age of social media, people insisted that something must have happened because somebody in California said so. Some people said with certainty that a rocket hit in this or that place; one claimed he saw the smoke from a building that had been struck. In the end, it was announced that a rocket from the Gaza Strip had been shot down far to the south. The atmosphere was reminiscent of 1991 when three dozen Iraqi rockets did hit Israel, one of them a few blocks from my home, and anti-missile batteries could be heard nightly firing at incoming missiles from Iraq.
Of course, there’s nothing funny about a war. Less than an hour’s drive to the south people are under fire. There are casualties on both sides, including civilians. This is a serious matter, made no less so by its relative familiarity. Yet there is a difference between the horrors of war and imagining away a conflict, an inescapable situation, because one wants to do so. Only by confronting the reality can there be the best possible response to a crisis. Wishful thinking or ignoring real conflicts makes things worse.
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A key to the problem of Western comprehension of international realities is admirably summarized by a New York Times editorial on the subject:
No country should have to endure the rocket attacks that Israel has endured from militants in Gaza, most recently over the past four days. The question is how to stop them permanently.
The answer to that question is simple to understand, if not easy to implement. The attacks can only be stopped if Hamas is removed from power and replaced, given contemporary circumstances, by the Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA is certainly no prize, but that’s a reasonable goal for what is often referred to as the international community.
Yes, Hamas won an election in 2007, but then it staged a violent coup and threw out the opposition, and has thus governed as an unelected dictatorship. It has no legal basis, since Hamas never accepted the Oslo Accords agreements. Hamas is also a terrorist group. And it daily voices not only its opposition to Israel’s existence but also advocates — and teaches the children of Gaza to carry out some day — the commission of genocide against all Jews.
So the answer to the Times’ question is a no-brainer, right? Of course, this response is not what the Times has in mind.
I could care less what lessons, ” the world “, learns from a, ” new Gaza war “.
Rather let the Israeli government learn that ceding territory does not lead to peace.
Menachem, some more food for thought…..re our war front/home front – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/11/16/war-more-tel-aviv-in-the-cross-hairs-israels-leaders-up-in-arms-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
“The question is how to stop them permanently.”
Drive the Muslim imperialists and colonialists out of Eretz Israel, and other lands they stole…permanently.
There is no other answer.
Dear Israel:
Killl them all. Kill them now. Sent official regrets later. The concept peacaeful coexistence with a peaceful Palestinian nation is delusional. Tell the effete Western Europeans to shove it. Tell the greater Arab world that their klcontinued existence is in question.
I’m more subtle and nuancy and all that stuff. I suggest Israel announce a policy of land for rockets. Divide Gaza into a grid of 1 km^2 squares. For each rocket that comes over the border, Israel seizes a square kilometer of their choosing and annexes it, and drives the residents out. Start with the square closest to Sderot. Eventually, they’ll get squoze out of proximity to Sderot, and other targets. When all that’s left is their tunnels, it becomes Egypt’s problem. The problem will eventually be solved, one way or another.
re: land for rockets: I’m in favor of it.
Of course, your suggested policy would “solve” the problem a bit too quickly. The entire Gaza Strip is 360 square kilometers in area. How many rockets were fired at Israel over the past few days?
I don’t know how this could be implemented, particularly with immediate feedback (i.e. one rocket an hour ago = one less square kilometer now). But I’d like to see it tried.
Let the population in Gaza remove hamas from power. How? Every time hamas attacks Israel destroy the complete infrastructure. No telephone, water, television, electricity, gasoline-stations and roads and control imports. I wonder how much time it would take until the population turns against its own “government.” They don’t seem to care about human casualties, but make them live without telephone and internet and cars and they may come to their senses.
This is silly. If you are going to fight, do it all at once rather than behaving like a machine producing only so much change at a time. People learn how best to fight you if you fight them slowly.
So much for theory — you now know why in theory this sort of measured approach can be expected to fail. Now for the practice. I lived through the Vietnam war and the US was always “escalating” its war effort by this or that measured amount in response to provocations from the other side. All this “tit for tat” approach did was to allow the other side to choose when and where they attacked. The slow ramp-up of our war effort also gave them time to figure out how to counter it. Eventually they found our greatest vulnerability — the unwillingness of young US adults to be drafted into a war with no obvious victory in sight — and then used that to beat us in Vietnam.
In short, if you choose blood and death as your response (and at times that is the only choice that makes sense) do it all the way. Pretending that “We’re just doing this much extra because you did that when told not to” is a very bad idea.
Helping the Muslim Brotherhood into power is what got Ambassador Stevens killed. That’s what they’re hiding.
Look, the world will not allow us to defend ourselves, so nothing is new under the sun. Ask yours truly if she cares…
But Tel Avivians (and the Gush Dan region) have to understand that their ‘cousins’ in the south have been enduring terror for over a decade. And the fact of the matter is this – there is NO doubt that Bibi and Barak will up the ante, now that TA is in the cross hairs.
Now, far be it for this blogger to not want fellow Israelis to be able to sip their lattes in peace, but fair is fair.
At the end of the day our leadership will do what they should have done yrs ago, but only because TA is in play!!
http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/11/15/war-update-a-recharged-idf-on-the-march-hunting-down-islamic-jihadists-separating-their-heads-literally-addendum-to-idf-exacts-major-price-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
I’m curious to hear which EU country you’re talking about so I can avoid visiting in the future.
I’d say you could safely say,all of them. this is the price we have paid for unfettered Muslim immigration. I think that anyone who protests and causes riots in a western nation should b permanently shown the door, even if they were born in a western democracy.
They use the freedoms we have fought for, against us. It’s time to stop vote whoring and demand that they accept the authority of the nation the have chosen as their home. If not,nobody is forcing them to stay here, but we could force them to leave because they are a danger to peace and order.
The real problem is what happens once they come here, not how many. Here in the U.S., immigrants assimilate very quickly into the broader culture–they speak the language, marry other groups, and move up in economic status. The obvious exception is the Mexicans, but that is due to leftist politics which seeks to segregate groups from each other.
My mother is the brown-skinned child of Italian immigrants. She was born in the U.S., her native language is English, and she married my dad, a standard blonde American of mixed descent from the British Isles (I look like a red-headed Irishman).
This sort of thing does not happen in Europe due to leftist politics, and so look at the results. I find it difficult to sympathize with the Europeans (and Obama voters for that matter) because they voted for those politicians. Its their own damn fault.
the worst country right now is Hungary
I think they fired on Tel Aviv and its surrounding cities because our media said the IDF destroyed the majority of the Fajr rockets (the Iranian-made medium-range rockets that can reach Tel Aviv), so they wanted to prove they still have the capability and create doubts and demoralize us. It’s psychological warfare.
I live in the south and it’s suspiciously quiet for a while now, maybe a couple of hours. I wonder what’s happening. Since sundown there have been rocket attacks every few minutes. There were two attacks while I was smoking one cigarette. There were 3 attacks while I was out getting some groceries. So it’s odd there hasn’t been one for a while. What’s going on? There must be a reason.
Don’t expect the West to learn from our experience. Unfortunately, they will only learn from theirs. And I mean through their own blood. They like their bubble too much to give it up unless there’s absolutely no choice. So as long as the consequences are experienced by others they prefer to “rationalize” it by demonizing us. They choose to believe we’re not like them – we’re evil, blood-thirsty Nazis, and stupid too – and that “explains” why it’s happening to us (but can never happen to them), so they don’t need to think about it any more, just continue babbling their stupid platitudes on autopilot like they always do. But since they like the Islamists so much that not only they support the jihad against us and welcome every new Islamist regime in the region, but also import them to their own countries and place them in strategic positions in their administrations and security institutions, it’s only a matter of time till bad things start happening to them more frequently. They’re just dumb beyond imagination, infinitely stupid, so there’s really nothing good or sensible to expect from them. That’s what happens when you let the intellectuals run the asylum.
First, let me state for the record that I do not believe that Israel has allies anywhere in the world. That includes Mr. Obama’s America. The American people may, indeed, support Israel in general, but the Administration only pays lip service.
Second, Turkey will support the Muslim Brotherhood, as their Foreign Minister has already demonstrated. His hypocrisy of claiming Israel is the aggressor certainly comports with Turkey’s recent actions against Syria [sarc]. Turkey wants more power in the general Middle East, and Israel is an easy, cost free, target.
Third, much to the consternation of the left wing elite in Europe and America, no one, including themselves, can successfully negotiate with Salafist and MB types unless the Westerners have already decided to submit to the Islamists. Remember, according to the Qu’ran, the only good infidel is dead, enslaved, or converted.
Hamas will never stop until they have exterminated Israel,so it would only be more incompetence on Israel’s part to capitulate under pressure from their hypocrite friends before ending Hamas forever
Israel’s continued existence and prosperity on land once under Muslim domination exposes Islam for the lie that it is.
If allah is truly God then how could ‘infidels’ take his/their land and be so blessed and prosperous unlike their surrounding, backwards Arab, Muslim neighbors.
The pride and the jealousy of the shamed religion of hate is unquenchable.
This is the crux of the problem and why there will never be peace until Islam is gone.
Only then will there be real,lasting peace between Arab and Jew.
Wipe Hamas out, once and for all. Hopefully, Erdogan will be visiting Gaza and share the fate of Hamas
Gaza is filled now with numerous terrorists/terror orgs (Hamas the old guard- the new guard from Syria (via Dubai)-PFLP from Syria-Islamic Jihadis- Salafists who murdered the Italian for Gaza chap). One way to deal terrorists regimes is to stop supporting them in Gaza- since 1948 (while Egyptian)UNRWA has made sure the Gazans have Section 8.housing-a real reason they do not want to disembark from their ‘refugee camps’-healthcare- schooling- assistance and on top of that they have EU contributing assistance- AL contributing- Saudis contributing for martyrs’families,hospital bills, now Qatar PM and FM Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jobor al-Thani is opening his wallet for Gazans wanting Israel to be punished for defending itself and bypassing questions how could Hamas et al. smuggle all the missiles-Farj rocket,mortars,Katyusha rockets through the tunnels from Egypt to Gaza. Arsenal caches all over the place. Egypt’s MB/Nour=Salafists are responsible- Iran+ Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps are responsible- UN is responsible- AL is responsible for fomenting/aiding/abetting Hamas et al and MB all over ME -Hizbollah and The Quartet- never making Hamas et al. even to ackowledge Israel’s Right to Exist as a Nation.
Jews are already considered guilty of ‘genocide’
Just off the muslims and be done with it. Stop the pussy footing around
How do you think all those young men buying and firing rockets support themselves? The answer: with Muslim oil money. So, eliminate all the Muslim oil producing infrastructure — which could be done with remarkably small loss of life — and the lack of cash forces these rocketeers to stop what they’re doing and get a real job. Middle-East oil is only about 20% of the world’s total oil supply, so the rest of us could do without it — it won’t be fun but it’s by no means catastrophic.
The basic problem with the Middle East today is that, after a few decades of indecision, too many Muslims have decided to use their oil wealth to conquer the world in the name of Allah. Take away that oil wealth, and they will adopt a more realistic attitude.
Oh, you could also nuke Mecca and Medina to show them that God is not necessarily on their side, but that’s optional. Destroying their ability to produce oil is not.
“How do you think all those young men buying and firing rockets support themselves?”
The answer: EU and US aid.
Bragging about not supporting Israel?
Nothing changes, Europe is STILL nothing but the land of Nazism.
Let it burn…
Interesting how the EU can send $6 billion to Egypt while Europe is in such a downward spiral. Is the the jizya they are paying ?
Morsi and Mubarak turned a blind eye to the weapons and missiles being smuggled into Gaza.
Israel looks to Egypt as some kind of fair broker between infidel Jew and M.Brotherhood brothers for jihad against the occupiers of Muslim lands.
The naivety of looking to Egypt is bordering on national suicide.
Friday the Egyptian PM is coming to Gaza, what if he has a pre-planned ‘accident’ with the blame placed on Israel as a pretext for Egypt’s intervention to rescue Hamas from Israel’s rod of correction ?
Does Israel continue to underestimate their irrational neighbors who follow the most diabolical false prophet hell ever sent to earth ?
Sooner or latter Israel will have no choice but get involve in a regional war. Egypt can’t survive on charity from the west its economy is already collapsed, eventually Egyptians will revolt against their rulers, since the brotherhood is in charge, they wont make the same mistake as Mubarak’s. In order to pacify the populace they may try to pick a fight with Israel. Or Most likely Assad will be cornered and he will drag Israel and Lebanon even Turkey into the conflict. We are also seeing Iran trying to provoke Israel through its surrogates. The question is what Hussein O will do? does he throws Israel under the bus? He may. I’m afraid we are reliving the second part of the 1930′s. This time around The American Jewish community can get the satisfaction of reelecting Hussein O as they did FDR. With all this anti Israel sentiments in America Will see how safe they will be? God help us all
FWIW, here’s my photo set I shot on Thursday in in the Israeli town of Kiryat Malachi at the apartment building where the three victims were, when the Grad rocket slammed through their south-facing porch and detonated. Article to be posted soon. Please share and forward: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151305170690446.526692.505025445&type=1
Be’er Sheva under Grad attack
http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2012/11/beer-sheva-under-grad-attack.html
These primitive savages need to be removed from mankind.
Netanyahu should have drones circling every square inch of Gaza to take out any threat, especially these:
http://kleinonline.wnd.com/2012/11/15/photo-hamas-missile-launch-pad-near-mosque-playground-civilian-factories-gas-station-also-half-a-block-from-fajr-5-site/
History clearly shows that wars end when one side is unable or unwilling to continue to fight. The ‘civilized’ world has always stopped Israel before it completed the job of defeating those who attacked it. The result has been not the end of war desired/fantasized by the West, but rather endless war.
The world is just bent on tickling the pride of Mu-slim(e)s ultimately for the latter’s command of oil supply. With a still relatively powerful country, i.e. the US, whose chief is a Muslim, bet, he may have killed a one-man Bin Laden, but a whole gamut of extremists? He would rather do it otherwise. Blood’s thicker than water. Grrr !
It would be nice to believe Egypt can get Gaza under control . Iran is the real monster. Obama now can prove his love for Israel by who he picks as new head of the CIA and if a few nukes are needed against Iran to stop Satan’s lust to wipe Israel off the map then so be it with all Islam paring God Is GREAT for it is easy for them to understand the need for almighty power figure of speech yet maybe nukes will not be needed and Iran will understand the need for bowing before the greater coming of Solomon the wise I believe
more latter
a call to prayer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF2bf8hC_sU
This new battle proves how deeply stupid was Sharon in his unilateral withdrawal.He opened the border with Egypt to Arms smuggling and here is the result, plus a hamas leadership.To reverse course Israel must wipe out to scumbags and it will be a long operation : Sealing the border with Egypt , entering Gaza with tanks and clearing every single building.Victory to Israel is what must be achieved.
A ruthlessly realistic article Barry. Israelis must feel like they are caught in a version of Groundhog Day set in Hell. I just read an account of the 67 War, and the most obvious thing is that the West has gone backwards since those days. Viewed through the lens of postcolonialism Israel is always the aggressor, even sincerely seen as the new Nazis. The other side the eternal innocent victims no matter what they do, no matter that they openly conspire to make war, shoot rockets with impunity, and express absolutist genocidal intentions. Meanwhile in the West – in Europe, in America, even here in Australia the colonialist Muslims are colonizing the postcolonial West. It’s a turn up for the books as my Cockney friends say.
What would happen if Mexico launched 830 missiles into El Paso? The US would squash them like bugs and give the finger to the UN. We should not expect Israel to act any differently. Time for talking is over. In fact, the Palestinians were never serious about anything other than the destruction of Israel, and that is the one constant in the entire region.
Mr. Rubin – excellent analysis and you’ve clarified group think as exercised in the capitals of the West. Israel is unique in its patience and self-examination. By the grace of God, I am not yet in Israel’s shoes and all the calls for a Hannibal solution notwithstanding, while I share them, I will not pay the price. Not since 1967 has Israel faced what it is facing today and that without guaranteed U.S. support – were I in Israel’s position, I would not trust the United States to come to my aid. I do, however, trust in the Israeli strategic war capability and clear-sightedness. May God keep His hand over his chosen ones and guide them.