Before I put up my Best of 2008, I thought it more appropriate to address the situation in Gaza.
When Israel pulled out of Gaza, I lauded the move and was roundly chastised by several conservatives for being "weak" on terror. I predicted that some time would pass, Israel would lose patience, and then attack them as one sovereign country would attack another.
For those of you who don't know, the Israeli military has decided to end the mortar attacks from Hamas once and for all. They have been pounding Gaza for the last three days and well over 300 people in the Hamas stronghold have been killed.
While I find this loss of life to be terribly sad, I think the amount of restraint Israel has shown has been remarkable. Most of you who know me know that I am a staunch supporter of Israel so this opinion will not come as any surprise. Hamas has two central goals in mind in their operations: abuse their own people by ripping them off financially and killing Jews. It's just that simple. When they broke with Abbas and the real Palestinian governing body, they basically made their bed. It's sad that innocents in the Gaza Strip have to suffer as a result but I don't see that they have any other recourse.
As a holocast survivor once said, "When someone says they want to kill you, believe them."
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There's an interesting editorial in the Washington Post from Daoud Kuttab that basically says Hamas had pretty much lost credibility among Arabs. Israel's attack has caused a major rebound in support for Hamas, and caused moderate Arab countries like Egypt to come under attack again for dealing with Israel.
This is reminiscent of Israel's foray into Lebanon from two years ago. That ended disastrously, as things often do when anger and impatience override diplomatic sensibilities.
Israel's attack on Lebanon and Bush's incursion into Iraq were pretty much the same thing. I completely understand Israel's frustration over the rocket attacks coming out of Gaza. But killing hundreds of people, many of them completely innocent, will only generate more hatred.
It seemed for a time that Israel had wised up on Hamas, and was using other forms of pressure (in particular, by rewarding Mahmoud Abbas and West Bank Palestinians). The United States used a similar tactic against Serbia, and eventually Slobodan Milosevic was ousted by the Serbians and delivered to the war crimes tribunal.
Instead of constantly being the villain, Israel needs to find a way to stop the rocket attacks without killing lots of innocent (and even guilty) people. Through a combination of technology (some kind of anti-missile battery that they're always trumpeting) and logistics (get Israelis out of the line of fire for the time being), they should be able to prevent Israeli deaths.
Then slowly choke the Hamas leaders the way they've been doing. If Hamas can't deliver basic goods to the Gazans, and they can't successfully harass the Israelis with their petty vengeance attacks, while West Bank Palestinians prosper with the help of Israel, the Gazans will eventually throw Hamas out as ineffectual. Israel needs to embarrass Hamas, not make martyrs out of them.
By playing Hamas's game, Israel is yet again falling into their trap. They use those rockets explicitly to bait Israel into attacking them again. And Israel has fallen for it one more time.
The reason for the Israeli attack is pretty transparent: they're having elections soon, and Olmert's party doesn't want to look weak. It's cynical and disgusting, and will only result in Netanyahu or some other conservative yahoo coming to power again, and the whole cycle will restart.
Months ago Olmert had all but said Israel would eventually have go back to the '67 borders and give the Palestinians back everything they've taken from them. I wish he'd go back to being truthful and brave, and stop this imitation of the cowardly and craven Bush he's doing now.
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