After doing a pretty good job of serving as a mouthpiece for Hamas for the last week, it is good to see the Washington Post start 2009 with some information about the current Israeli military action in Gaza that provides a bit of balance. Bet of all, Professor Robert Lieber of Georgetown points out some important details about the reasons for the Israeli attacks and how they have been conducted.

Let's break down his main points.

First, despite the tragic deaths of civilians, Israeli's airstrikes have been precisely aimed at Hamas fighters, installations and rocket launchers. Inevitably, the use of force causes injury and death to innocents, but from initial figures announced by U.N. personnel, it appears that more than 80 percent of those killed were Hamas security personnel or other militants -- a ratio that might compare favorably with the use of force by U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. In view of Hamas's practice of deliberately placing missile launchers and other weapons in the midst of densely populated areas, the precision is remarkable. It also reflects the fact that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) seek to minimize civilian deaths, while Hamas deliberately targets civilians.

Indeed, one of the reasons that Israel has shown extreme forbearance is because of the concern abut civilian casualties. However, the decision of Hamas to unilaterally end the six month truce with Israel and to step up attacks on Israeli civilians led Israel to act -- while still seeking to minimize civilian deaths.

And then there is this important consideration.

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Second, what we are witnessing is not a "cycle" of violence. The IDF airstrikes are a reaction to the unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks against the Jewish state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 in the hope that the Palestinians would use the opportunity to prepare for an eventual agreement and a two-state solution in which they would live side by side in peace with Israel. Since then, there have been more than 3,500 such attacks aimed at areas of southern Israel, including over 200 launches since Dec. 19, after Hamas chose not to extend a six-month truce. The expanding range of these missiles now covers an area populated by as many as 700,000 Israelis.

That's right -- Gaza is as Judenrein (translation: clean of Jews) as Hitler's ideal Germany would have been (the only Jew in Gaza is kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad_Shalit). Israel forcibly removed the last recalcitrant Jewish residents of Gaza (which had had a continuous Jewish presence for the previous three millennia) and turned it over to the avowed enemies of Israel in 2005 in a vain and foolish attempt to implement a so-called "two-state solution" to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since that time, there have been regular attacks from Gaza. And while Leiber says that there have been 200 launches since December 19, I'd like to suggest that the number is higher -- I've received text-message updates in the last two days indicating that at nearly that many rockets have been fired into Israel in the last 48 hours.

Lieber also makes another point -- Hamas rejects any two-state solution to the current conflict. As long as it maintains a hold on power, there can be no peace. Israel has acted in good faith to bring an end to six decades of instability in the region -- some of us would argue recklessly and foolishly so -- while having never had an actual partner for peace willing to act to actually bring about peace. Only by completely undermining Hamas might Israel create a situation in which the two-state solution might work -- and then only if Fatah is prepared to finally step up and act as a government rather than a terrorist organization or criminal gang.

Maybe the outcome of this military action will, finally, be peace.

Posted by: Greg at 04:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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