Israel’s War on Hamas: A Dozen Thoughts -Daniel Pipes10) The Israeli goal should be victory, not ending terrorism.
11) The Bush administration must not save Hamas.
12) Nor should the Obama administration.
[National Review]
Hamas Knows One Big Thing -Bret Stephens
War offers no outcome other than victory or defeat. This is one big thing that Hamas understands, and that Israel must as well.
(Wall Street Journal)
Hamas Gets Its Wish -Editorial
Israel bombarded Hamas security targets in Gaza for the third straight day, and much of the world screamed in protest that Israel has overreacted.
What would have happened if there had been such international outrage when the rocket attacks from Gaza began to escalate a few weeks ago? Or if there had been outrage when Hamas formally declared on Dec. 18 that it was ending the six-month truce with Israel?
(Chicago Tribune)
Sderot Under Siege -David Keyes
If 6,000 rockets were launched at San Diego from Tijuana, rest assured that the residents of Tijuana would have little trouble finding parking because their city would be flattened. There would be no talk of ceasefires. America would wage war, it would win, and the rocket fire would cease.
Hamas must be annihilated and Gazans' very faith in their way of life must perish in the agony of their total defeat, to paraphrase MacArthur. Only then may the people who elected the region's most vicious terrorist group undergo the spiritual reformation so critical of a defeated people to reject militarism and violence and embrace civility and restraint.
(Commentary)
Israel should defeat Hamas -Caroline Glick
The current operation in Gaza is not aimed at defeating Hamas. They have uttered no call for victory. To the contrary, as Olmert made clear in his speech [that] the goal of the current campaign is simply to "change the situation" in the South.
Livni has called for installing the Fatah terror group in Gaza instead of Hamas. But Fatah has been rejected by Palestinians. Bringing Fatah into Gaza would simply be an invitation for Fatah to conduct war against Israel and seek an accommodation with Hamas and Iran.
As was the case with Hizbullah, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government is signaling that it seeks a new negotiated settlement with Hamas. The hoped-for settlement will leave Hamas in power in Gaza. Although the government claims that the postwar Hamas will be more peaceful than the prewar Hamas, there is no reason to believe this will be the case.
[I]f Hamas remains in control of Gaza after the current war, no matter what its condition, it will be perceived as the winner.
[A]ny strategic advantage enjoyed from the IDF's success will be marginal. Like Hizbullah, Hamas - which enjoys Iranian and Syrian state sponsorship - does not have to defeat Israel to be perceived as the victor. It merely needs to survive. [B]y surviving, it will expand its international cachet.
[Jerusalem Post]
2 comments:
Nice to imagine, but highly unlikely. It is unfair to Israel to paint this as the only way because it is probably not possible. As our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan prove, it is not so easy to wipe out enough of the opposition. 100,000 dead Iraqis did not do it, and it took another 30,000 American troops just to calm things down to the point they are not terrible, and people actually think something more was accomplished. In Afghanistan, we actually thought we'd won and the Taliban was defeated, until they were resurgent. Israel does not have the size army, depth or resources, even with its vast capabilities, excellent training and technology to accomplish all the goals the press and pundits set for it. It is not clear it will even set foot in Gaza. It may be able to knock Hamas back a few years by destroying much of their capabilities, but it seems the world will broker a cease fire before that is even clearly accomplished. What Israel is accomplishing, what they failed to do last time in Lebanon, is that they are clearly a superior force to be feared and trifled with at the other party's risk. This is what they needed to accomplish and what was most possible for them to accomplish; to take back the mantle as the undeniably superior force. It was the fear of Israel's capabilities that has helped preserve it for many years. In recent years they were perceived to be losing their edge, to the point where some nations, like Iran, were ignoring their understood nuclear capability. It would be great if Israel can accomplish something that would knock out Hamas, but they have achieved something important here, even if the world blocks them from achieving much more, were it even realistic and possible.
You could be right.
But the West Bank's relative stability may be a model to apply to the [admittedly stickier] Gaza Strip.
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