Quick thought of the day

The leftists argument that Israel is an occupying force and Gaza has entitlement to defend itself under international law, and Israel, also entitled to defend itself from the repeated rocket attacks under international law, then isn't it just a clear cut case for all out no holds barred war?

I know one thing, if I were in charge of Israel and I had the responsibility of keeping my people safe I would give Hamas a final ultimatum - one more rocket and you start a 10 day countdown to the wholesale destruction of Gaza. During which time safe passage would be provided for civilians through to Palestinian West Bank and another living left in Gaza wouldn't stay so for long once zero hour on day 10 arrives.

The reason why the media and the leftists have the majority at the moment because no Western power, possibly since 1991 Gulf War, has demonstrated the effectiveness of the use of maximum force to bring about the total defeat of an enemy. I have never subscribed to the whole shock and awe, let's take a timeout for humanitarian reasons approach. This just shows that those in charge of the military machine are trying to win the media war, not the ACTUAL war - the latter I believe to be far more important.

We've seen how Israel have been damned in the Western media since their actions in Gaza and in my opinion this is because they gave Hamas the time to report vastly inflated casualty reports rather than keeping them pinned down and under fire. The IDF wanted to avoid collateral damage but did so at the expense of their own soliders. This is unforgiveable for any commander in chief. Civilian casualties are inevitable, military losses are preventable with good planning.

The longer it dragged on, the longer the leftist media had the chance to dig up the thesaurus and use every word to villify Israel in every way possible. It gave rent a mobs a chance to organise themselves and allign themselves with pockets of Islamists. It gave the media a chance to take a few snippets out of the long history of the region and exploit them as reasons why Israel are the bad guys.

A swift campaign bringing total destruction and total defeat of the enemy along with the inevitable civilian casualties would have been in the papers for a couple of days and then filed under the Israeili-Arab conflict and everyone would have gone back to their lives.

Israel needs to take it's very existence far more seriously and worry less about what the corrupt, political correct, socialist media thinks.

Iran's shadow in Gaza

A brilliant piece by Walid Phares at Counterterrorism blog.

A key point that sums up the failure of the peace process is made succintly;

"By 2005 Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip and the Palestinian Authority was closer to statehood than ever. But Hamas, which won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 thanks to massive Iranian support and its armed omnipresence, refused to follow the course of the Camp David process. According to its ideologues and leaders, and unlike Arafat and Abbas, the radical group “cannot” recognize the existence of the state of Israel"

This says it all really. Isreal basically handed the PA a golden opportunity for them to achieve a Palestinian state internationally recognised but they chose instead to use the territory as a more convenient launch pad for sending indiscriminate missiles into Isreal in line with their Iranian dictated objectives.

So whilst they maintain this goal there is no point negotiating with them as there is no common ground. At the same time they must be shown that their actions have consequences, this is exactly what the IDF are showing them right now. It's simple.

Iran's involvement is a different matter/discussion altogether and is way more frightening.

As Walid says, "Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, most of the Gulf States are nervous about Iran’s influence in Gaza". And rightly so. If Hamas aren't dealt a swift blow in the current engagement they will be emboldened and that can only mean a further escalation in violence towards Israel. An Israel subdued by international pressure to accept the incoming violence from Gaza and an emboldened Hamas backed by Iran is a deadly scenario. If we allow this to happen we are sealing Israels fate whilst rubber stamping Islamist aggression against us all.

What the world is conveniently forgetting however is the one weapon that Israel has that Iran doesn't (yet). Cutting Israel adrift citing moral superiority may leave Israel with no choice but in a dying bid for existence to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iran. If Iran disappears, so do Hamas. An extreme option but if it's a choice between fight or die, you've already seen which option is favoured.