Comment & Debate
“Israel’s Gaza Surge”. Wall Street Journal. January 4, 2009 – The strategic question is larger than merely stopping Hamas missiles from landing in Israeli cities, though that is justification enough for Israel’s bombing and the ground operation. A nation like Israel, with enemies on all sides, must maintain an aura of invincibility if it is to have any chance at peaceful co-existence. It was that aura after two wars that induced Egypt to agree to peace with Israel in the 1970s. By contrast, the 2006 Lebanon campaign convinced radical Arabs and Persians that Israel had grown soft and could be beaten. Israel can’t let Hamas maintain a similar mythology at the end of this operation, or the costs will be far higher down the road.
“National Post Editorial Board: Why Israel can’t afford to hold back”. National Post. December 31, 2008 – To be sure, Israel’s reaction to the constant deluge of missile fire from Gaza has been harsh, but necessarily so. Moreover, now that Israel has begun its retaliation it would be unwise to halt before Hamas is permanently incapacitated. Among the many reasons Hamas felt emboldened to attack Israel first was the Jewish state’s recent reluctance to counter assaults on its people and territory with punitive force. Thus Israel is also justified in rejecting an internationally proposed ceasefire. If southern Israel is to know “quiet” again, Israel must rout Hamas so as to deter it and other Islamic extremists from resuming their assaults.
Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chair of the Conference of Presidents. – The UN charter recognizes the right of countries to defend their borders and their citizens and must uphold that principle. UN condemnations of the Israeli airstrike will be counterproductive and further terror will be invited in the Middle East and around the world if they equate those engaged in terror with those defending against it and those who exercise restraint with those who exploit it.[1]