105 Comments

1. Herb:

He votes present.

This was inevitable. While their forbearance has been commendable, Israel’s patience is not endless. The consequence will be that we’ll see plenty of pics of suffering HAMAS kids, etc. but not much else. HAMAS will be back at the same old stand selling the same old likker.

150 missiles doesnt seem very massive. But then the incoming isnt close. Maybe I’m just an American used to the constant availability of Shock and Awe ™. Seems Iread that HAMAs sent over 200 into Israel in one exercise.

Maybe it would be useful to hit the same targets 2-3 times over a couple days so that nobody goes close for a while.

Dec 27, 2008 - 4:04 pm 2. RWE:

Note that this was a case of a precision strike on targets directly related to those who were shooting rockets into Israel.

Now, the IDF could have simply fired back with MRLS, 844 bomblets per rocket, tit for tat, one for every rocket fired into Israel. The loss of life would have been far greater.

The Israelis have learned. Time was, they would have done tit for tat. Rockets into Israel would have resulted in an airstrike on a refuge camp. They came to realize that this was counterproductive and only produced more anger against them. I recall an article by a IDF colonel saying just that in some of my professional military reading in the early 80’s.

But tit for tat fits Clinton’s – and no doubt Obama’s – concept of a response. It avoids strategic thinking and is an easily defensible approach at a cocktail party.

Dec 27, 2008 - 4:32 pm 3. Lifeofthemind:

What I would like is for Israel to line up 200 artillery tubes starting at the shore near Zikim and eat its way forward one sixteenth of a mile each day until peace, real peace not a hudna, is accepted. Shell and advance, then pause and then shell and advance. They should make it very clear that as of now any land that is taken from hostile arabs will never be given up. Allow civilians to escape to the South-west towards Egypt.

A few trials of people who sited military targets so they would be co-located with schools and hospitals would also be in order.

Dec 27, 2008 - 4:34 pm 4. enscout:

Yes, I read about it here a couple of days ago: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/hamas-goads-israel-into-war/

Then again this AM on a MSM broadcast, like a broken record, how the Israelis were pounding targets in Gaza, wounding ‘civilians’ – but with no background story about the 80 rockets/day Hamas was sending into Sderot & the Negev.

Time for the bleeding heart Euro crowd to rev up their anti Israel screed.

Just makes my ass tired…

Dec 27, 2008 - 4:36 pm 5. Lifeofthemind:

If they confine this to precision response on structural facilities then they are providing training to Hamas and allowing it to survive. They have to act now before Iran is ready to bring Hezbollah in and threaten Israel existentially. Either Gaza exists as a peaceful appendage of Egypt or Gaza does not exist at all. Those are the only choices I see now.

Dec 27, 2008 - 4:39 pm 6. Lifeofthemind:

The bien pessants excoriate Israel for three reasons:
1) Anti-semitism, occasionally sublimated into corruption, this is the dishonest enemy
2) Genuine hatred of the West and identity with our enemies, this is the honest enemy
3) Fear that you are more likely to end up like Theo van Gogh attacking Islamists than Jews.

Dec 27, 2008 - 4:43 pm 7. MarcH:

It is heartening that this time Israel seems to realize the importance of the information/media war.

The above media/target packages were obviously prepared ahead of the strikes to explain Israel’s case to the world (including the blogosphere).

Yasher Koach to the IDF. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah to all those fighting the good fight tonight in dark places, including the men and women of the U.S. military, currently engaging the same enemy in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.

Dec 27, 2008 - 5:13 pm 8. wretchard:

Imagine a scene in a novel — let’s call it The Last Band Aid” — where a man is found dead in his home in an unnamed European country. The post-mortem shows he died from acute metastatic cancer: lesions in the brain, tumors in the pelvis, kidney failure. The whole nine yards. An Inspector General comes to the home of the deceased to solve the mystery of why the dead man never sought treatment, never asked the system for help, presumably to identify deficiencies in the bureaucracy that prevented it. When he searches the man’s little apartment, he finds drawers full of over the counter painkillers: boxes and boxes of them, plus enough cough syrup and cheap whiskey to stun a herd of oxen.

“Why didn’t he come in for help? Why did he rely on palliatives?” the Inspector General asks. “It’s a mystery.”

Then we follow the Inspector General back to his office, a huge, gleaming skyscraper filled with thousands of bureaucrats. Then we see what they are all doing: the armies of officials are filling out reports on people who have been found dead in their homes. And then the scene shifts outside to trucks which are leaving in a continuous convoy from the vast warehouses of the National Health Service, and we see that they laden with tens of thousands of boxes of painkillers, cough syrup and cheap whiskey.

How different is this from the diplomatic dance that has been going on for decades in the Middle East?

Dec 27, 2008 - 5:20 pm 9. Michelle Renee:

Master Sun Tzu said all warfare was based on deception.

Haaretz.com says Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday announced the crossings into the Strip would be opened to allow food and medication to enter.

“The move attracted fierce criticism from the media and right-wing lawmakers, which Barak absorbed quietly. The opening of the crossings, likewise, quieted Hamas, which was led to believe it had time to pursue diplomatic channels. In addition, the media was informed that the prime minister would hold a meeting about the matter today and that a significant number of army units would be sent home for vacation.”

So Hamas was lulled into thinking it was time for diplomacy. Instead Gaza got two waves of F-16s and helicopters delivering over 100 tons of explosives to approximately 100 Hamas targets in four minutes. And if the rocket attacks continue, they will face the IDF in ground action. Their choice.

Dec 27, 2008 - 5:38 pm 10. NahnCee:

Surely Hamas must have a limited amount of bodies (and brains) to continue their insanity. If Israel just keeps bombing the hell out of them every once in a while, targeting where the rockets are coming from, you would think tht numerically they’d run out of fighting-age men.

First thing I saw in the news this morning was a picture of a Palestinian man, arms spread wide in that patented Arab gesture of grief, with a headline that he was looking for a missing relative. Why was there a photographer there immediately and WHY must AP / Reuters / LA Times run the damned picture? What does it prove, or even demonstrate?

Dec 27, 2008 - 5:54 pm 11. Bonzo:

“…all warfare was based on deception…”
Tzu is over rated.

Israel cannot afford to lose once, yet Israel only now acts as if she is at war. Israel should remove/kill every enemy in Gaza. One by one kill them.

Now America has Obama to protect us. Are we on Candid Camera? Is our reaction to insanity a type of entertainment? I don’t believe that but it almost looks it.

Dec 27, 2008 - 5:56 pm 12. Bonzo:

“How different is this from the diplomatic dance that has been going on for decades in the Middle East?”
—

You can’t have a sentence without words. Erase the words and the sentence cannot exist.

I wonder sometimes whether Jew hatred is in some ways a proof of God. Then I look at all the good things the UN has done to uplift and enrich humanity and encourage peace, justice, human rights and the rule of law. We live in interesting times.

Dec 27, 2008 - 6:06 pm 13. wretchard:

I think the diplomats are playing a dangerous game. The only thing that keeps the situation in the Middle East stable is Israeli restraint. But that’s the stability of a spinning plate in a juggler’s hands; not that of a concrete block sitting foursquare on the floor. The danger is the diplomats may come to regard Israeli restraint as a foundation on which to build their diplomatic fantasies. They will keep handing the juggler one more plate, one more ball, one more champagne glass to spin at the end of a stick. Give back the Golan Heights; let the Arabs have part of Jerusalem; ignore the rocket attacks from Gaza. Today there are no more enemies. Only Partners for Peace.

But they build at the risk that someday the juggler will miss a catch. Restraint may collapse or maybe simply lapse for an instant. But that instant will be fatal. The Arabs, conditioned to expecting Israeli restraint, may explode in outrage. The Israelis may be driven over the edge. All the plates will come crashing down. And on that day the diplomats will be the persons most astonished at the collapse of their house of cards. There won’t be any stability in the Middle East until there is real restraint on both sides; not fake restraint on one side and real restraint on the other.

Dec 27, 2008 - 6:19 pm 14. MarkJ:

“President-elect Obama is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza, but there is one president at a time,” said Brooke Anderson, Mr. Obama’s chief national security spokesperson.”

Obama has been doing a lot of “monitoring” lately, hasn’t he? I guess he plans to be our first “Monitor-in-Chief.” Being a “monitor” is fun, because it lets you pretend–and leaves the perception–that you’re actually making decisions and taking action. It’s a perfect role for a man who has always viewed “process” as an end in itself. A Eurocrat with nukes.

Too bad for Obama that, sooner rather than later, he’ll encounter a situation that he won’t be able to “monitor”–and then we’ll get the real measure of the man, won’t we?

Dec 27, 2008 - 6:25 pm 15. sirius_sir:

Maybe we are witnessing not juggler error but juggler fatigue; the juggler is just damned tired of playing the same old game.

About time and none too soon.

Dec 27, 2008 - 6:34 pm 16. Michelle Renee:

Wretchard said, “The Arabs, conditioned to expecting Israeli restraint, may explode in outrage.”

And immediately after that they will literally explode. The Arabs have always gotten the short end of the stick when Israeli restraint has been stressed beyond its breaking point. Only this time there is no more Cold War, no US and USSR for the Arabs to play one off against the other to hold Israel back. If Obama, as expected, breaks neutrality and comes down decidedly in favor of the Arab side diplomatically, Israel will no longer look to America to green light their operations and they will no longer heed any US calls for restraint nor will Israel work to improve their “PR” in the European press. They will decide their own survival (as it really always has been) is in their own hands.

Dec 27, 2008 - 6:39 pm 17. Insufficiently Sensitive:

“President-elect Obama is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza, but there is one president at a time,”

Meaning, he still isn’t going to disclose to us via MSM what his policies might be once he is in the driver’s seat. That’s voting ‘present’. I wonder what his people are telling the Israelis’ people, and what they’re telling Hamas’s people and Hezbollah’s people and Iran’s people.

The skepticism remains stuck on maximum. It’s quite proper for him to observe there’s ‘one President at a time’, but Lord knows what the next administration might actually do when its tactics get unveiled.

Dec 27, 2008 - 6:41 pm 18. RWE:

Wretchard: Imagine what the “Design Margin” for Israel has to be.

A year or two ago I heard Glenn Beck describing his trip to Israel. Going to a mall to buy a pair of socks required you to pass security procedures greater than we have to undergo to fly on an airliner. “Hi! Who are you? Where are you from? What are you doing here? Why do you want to go in the mall?”

Meanwhile, in Gaza they consider trashing some greenhouses they themselves own (by virtue of the kindness of strangers) to be a good morning’s exercise. Better for the constitution than brisk walk around the park.

This sounds like diplomacy based on “From Each According To His Ability and To Each According To His Needs.”

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:04 pm 19. 907ie:

“What I would like is for Israel to line up 200 artillery tubes starting at the shore near Zikim and eat its way forward one sixteenth of a mile each day until peace, real peace not a hudna, is accepted. Shell and advance, then pause and then shell and advance. They should make it very clear that as of now any land that is taken from hostile arabs will never be given up.”

Seems like the best answer to me, “liberate” these lands of the thugs, criminals, terrorists that now rule them, incorporate them into Israel, and declare that if necessary for peace, the same will be done to the whole Middle East even if it takes a thousand years.

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:05 pm 20. Utopia Parkway:

Ehud Barak has said that one goal of this operation is to stop the Hamas rocket fire against Israel. This is in fact an ambitious goal and perhaps is impossible to achieve without routing Hamas. Israeli leaders have said today that the operation will continue for weeks so there is a lot that remains to be seen. Hamas will not give up easily and its strength is in its guerilla fighters so it won’t even be thinking of giving up until it meets the Israelis on the ground.

The Israelis are massing ground troops along the border with Gaza but have not made any significant call up of reserves. As Terrresita mentions upthread, war is deception. What Israel’s true goals are and what it’s plans are remain to be seen.

In the 2006 Leb war we all waited for the plan to unfold and for the ground attack to proceed to deal a knockout blow to Hezbo. It didn’t happen that way. Perhaps this time things will be different.

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:13 pm 21. Kinuachdrach:

“If Obama, as expected, breaks neutrality and comes down decidedly in favor of the Arab side diplomatically …”

The same Obama who committed to abide by public-financing limits? The same anti-war campaigner who has kept President Bush’s Defense Secretary? The Big O has disappointed so many already, what’s a few upset Arabs?

One of the issues confronting Obama on Day 1 is that everyone who matters thinks he is a wimp — Iran, Russia, North Korea, Somali pirates, even the gutless EU.

Will Obama, who has clearly no problem with acting contrary to his prior statements, feel compelled to unleash a little “shock & awe” of his own to gain some respect? Did this perhaps figure into the Israelis plans?

Timing of all of this is interesting. Hamas has been firing missiles into Israel for months. Why respond now? Is it all positioning ahead of next year’s elections in Israel, or is Israel trying to provoke Iran?

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:13 pm 22. whiskey:

Wretchard, you have not caught the real game being played.

Obama has had secret meetings with Hamas and Hezbollah. His National Security Adviser, Rice, has said she would like to have an American invasion of Israel to dismantle Israel as a nation and install Hamas and Hezbollah as occupiers.

THAT is the endgame. Hamas and Hezbollah manage to provoke an Israeli response, Obama sends in the military to destroy the Israeli nation, and provide cover for the Hamas and Hezbollah occupation. Israel’s nukes to be probably given to Hamas.

Obama is after all a man who was raised a Muslim, taught as a Muslim, who wrote movingly of Muslim faith and Islam, and who can recite the call to prayer from memory in Arabic and called it the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. Of course he wants to destroy Israel. All Muslims do. As do all Leftists.

Make no mistake, the vast majority of the Left, the Democratic Party, Unions, La Raza, Blacks, Hispanics, the Media, Hollywood, and female-skewing infotainment outlets like the View or Oprah would back Israel’s destruction by the US with jubilation. The Press would like nothing more, as would most Blacks or Latinos. Certainly most of the Democrats in Congress would applaud.

Obama is just waiting. That’s his plan — to destroy Israel for Muslims so they will no longer “hate us” and then we can all read the Koran together or something. A man with the middle name of Hussein could do no less.

If he wished to discourage Hamas adventuring he could say his Administration would back any Israeli reprisals, he has not done so. I’m sure he still thinks as he did in the Rashid Khalidi tapes the LAT has hidden, where he droned on about how he wished to see Israel “erased from existence” and applauded various frothing at the mouth anti-Semitic remarks. [People have seen the tape, it's worse than you could imagine. David Duke and the neo-Nazis would be ashamed of the anti-Semitism on display and Obama's endorsement of it.]

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:25 pm 23. Charles:

Maybe the first strike decapitated Hamas leadership.

I don’t know. If IDF killed 200 of the right guys and took out their cool digs and stuff and promised they’d never get their cool digs and stuff back for as long as they shelled Israel–well that might impress the Hamas.

I think its better to do precision bombing than rolling into Gaza with tanks. Tanks are very photogenic. Tanks are about controlling a war space. The IDF shouldn’t care about that. They should just care about killing Hamas and destroying their cool stuff.

By now there should not be an inch of Gaza that israeli intelligence doesn’t understand. They should know the comings and goings of Hamas officials five steps down. Anyone they didn’t get in the first strike they can take out on the 5th or 10th strike.

IDF preditors should just be parked over gaza airspace.

If the first strike was successful then likely the results of the first strike will be to both dumb down and skatter Hamas soldiers. They won’t have any leadership and they won’t be keen to gather at their old stomping grounds to make the job of IDF jets easier.

What to do?

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:31 pm 24. Leo Linbeck III:

There is one President at a time.

This is an odd phrase, one that has been used repeatedly by Team Obama. It is a BGO (Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious), and as such doesn’t add anything to the discussion. Moreover, I cannot recall it ever being used before by a President-Elect. Does anyone recall Bush, Clinton, or others ever using it?

If Obama is going to support the current Bush response to the Gaza strikes (they’re justified, although what is really needed is Real Peace™), why not just come out in support of that response? Such an approach would be much more forceful, and show that there is only one American position on this issue, regardless of who is sitting in the Oval Office.

But by saying “No comment and TIOPAAT,” thus pushing the issue firmly back on the Bush Administration, he implies that he may change course after 20 January 2009. After all, simply remaining silent retains all the optionality he would need; there is no need for TIOPAAT. It will likely be seen by both Israel and Hamas as a signal of change. So rather than de-escalating the situation, Obama’s statement actually increases the likelihood of short-term escalation, it seems to me.

In short, I see no benefit here to strategic ambiguity. But perhaps I’m missing something.

L3

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:39 pm 25. Michelle Renee:

Kinuachdrach asks why did Israel respond now. It was a perfect storm.

One, there was a cease-fire that expired a week ago, and since then, Hamas has lobbed 200 missiles into Israel. That is the direct casus belli.

Two, this is Olmert’s chance to polish up his legacy before he steps down.

Three, this is Kadima’s chance to undermine Natanyahu’s Likud as the party of strength and roll out Tzipi Livni before the Feb 10 elections.

Four, Bush is a lame duck, he’s got nothing to lose by letting Israel unleash the attack.

Five, Obama is an unknown quantity. He might pressure Israel to yield to the “peace process” which mainly involves eating the rockets from Gaza and doing nothing.

If the rocket attacks resume, expect to see more airstrikes followed by a lot of boots on the ground, perhaps the biggest operation since 2006. Israel only has a window of three weeks.

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:57 pm 26. wretchard:

But by saying “No comment and TIOPAAT,” thus pushing the issue firmly back on the Bush Administration, he implies that he may change course after 20 January 2009.

Obama’s not binding himself to GWB’s actions yet not repudiating them either. That has two effects. One is it leaves him free to do either or neither. Two, is it encourages both sides to think they’re winning, if that’s what they’re inclined to think.

“How am I doin’ boss?”

“(Undecipherable mumbling). There is only one President at a time.”

It’s like simultaneously displaying green — or red — on both sides of an intersection. Will it cause everyone to stop? Or will it precipitate a 30 car collision? Stay tuned.

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:02 pm 27. Changing The Rules » The Ethereal Voice:

[...] The Belmont Club has more. [...]

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:14 pm 28. RWE:

“Obama’s not binding himself to GWB’s actions yet not repudiating them either.”

Alternative explantion: He is voting “present” per Herb – or his other favorite legislative trick, voting with an expectation that he can change it formally on the record later – but with no real impact on the vote already over.
Which, come to think of it, is just about the same thing that you said.

Recall that you yourself pointed out that Obama’s statements indicate that he really thinks the Campaign Effect will work in the real world. His mere presence, based entirely on the fact that he has relatives in Kenya, will cause changes in people’s actions. In effect, he thinks that both Hamas and Israel will “vote” for him because of who he is.

I recall Peggy Noonan’s summary of a hypothetical Kerry Administration foreign policy: “He would surround himself with very bright people and study each problem very carefully, and then do nothing, because the only answer they would come up with would be to do the same thing that Republicans would do, and they can’t do that.” Well, Obama would omit the “Study” part of this approach and just expect the fact that he is interested in the subject to create answers.

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:47 pm 29. Walt:

When Hamas took over Gaza they destroyed Israeli greenhouses that produced fruit and vegetables for the entire region, greenhouses that would have provided jobs and income for the people of Gaza. But Hamas and the people of Gaza didn’t care about that, they cared only that the greenhouses were Israeli, and thus must be destroyed. This is called irreconcilable hatred. The Arabs do not understand what is going on. They are like ants nipping at the ankles of an elephant, and the more the elephant ignores them the bolder they get, until the elephant finally has enough and stomps on them. Maybe somebody should draw them a picture.

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:52 pm 30. S:

JPOST has an interesting piece today on the dogfight between the proposed to ME envoys (ROss,Kurtzer) and their “approaches.” It is all the more interesting in the context of the voo doo dance that you describe. It is all the more interesting in the context of the Saudi editorial in the Wash Post Friday re the “solution.” Obama is offering a security umbrella but that is antithetical to a country not nearly as comfortable outsourcing their survival. Obama ME policy is a myth. So too is Ferguson’s notion in FT today that Obama goes to Iran, breaks bread and sees Adejad thrown out and the nuke program abandoned. Unlikely, but hope runs eternal. Somehow I think the obama hype will be outlasted by the realities on the ground. The diplomatic community is the sound of one hand clapping, as always.

Dec 27, 2008 - 9:03 pm 31. SDben5:

Is there any significance to this attack seemingly to be in broad daylight?

Can the Israelis win a war of attrition? The cost of Hamas mortars is far less than cost of the bombs, and jets, and pilots, and training.

Dec 27, 2008 - 9:12 pm 32. Ledger:

I think this is somewhat like the second Battle of Fallujah. It’s now time for Israel to send in ground troops to mop-up the dead-enders. If they fail to do so the enemy will simply regroup and attack again.

Dec 27, 2008 - 9:30 pm 33. weSwinger:

Ouch. whiskey I need another drink.

Dec 27, 2008 - 9:35 pm 34. trangbang68:

Whiskey, Come on man, that was black helicopter
stuff. I’m as pro Israel and death to Hamas as anyone, but that stuff about Susan Rice is nuts. You wouldn’t have any documentation on that would you? Didn’t think so.

Dec 27, 2008 - 9:59 pm 35. Lifeofthemind:

Gaza must be one of the most intensively studied places on earth. Can there be a vehicle, outhouse or mouse hole that isn’t in a database? The Israelis should know who has halitosis and who chews their nails. The place is small, about the population size of The Bronx and Staten Island put together (about 2,000,000) in a slightly larger land area.

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:07 pm 36. Lifeofthemind:

@trangbang,
If whiskey had said that Obama had Rice sit up and beg while he put on the big hat with the feather, to prove his Alphaness, I would have rolled my eyes. The Khalidi tape is part of the collection stuffed into in Fibber McGee’s closet. One day that sucker has got to blow open. Is it possible that Obama and his minions put out crazy stuff like that because they get their jollies yanking everyone’s chain about it?

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:15 pm 37. sfblue:

Hamas Propaganda War:

One of the first things I noticed when watching the “BBC” video footage was that in frame were others with video equipment also “covering” the scene.

Something about this has a ‘boy who cried wolf’ feeling about it. I think the Islamists have overplayed the media war. When I see footage of wailing mourners now, I don’t feel as much empathy as I used to. I think the media war that has been successfully employed in the past is backfiring and Hamas is going to find that it doesn’t work as well as it used to.

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:19 pm 38. j-damn:

*Obama is after all a man who was raised a Muslim, taught as a Muslim, who wrote movingly of Muslim faith and Islam, and who can recite the call to prayer from memory in Arabic and called it the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. Of course he wants to destroy Israel. All Muslims do. As do all Leftists.*

Just imagine if in 1940 we elected a guy with two Japanese names who said the Banzai cheer was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.

We. Are. Screwed.

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:21 pm 39. sfblue:

On the Obama raised a Muslim thing: What about the fact that he named Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff who is a known ardent supporter of Israel?? Hmmm…?

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:25 pm 40. Lifeofthemind:

@sfblue
What about that fable that keeps getting peddled? The campaign sure did a professional job of shipping it out to the old folks in Florida, Emmanuel’s role in his inner circle as a reason to feel safe with the Big BO. What is it based on? He fixed brake linings for a week when he was stuck in Israel as a war broke out 17 years ago and he cast a few foreign aid votes. He is deep in the corrupt Chicago machine. His ardent support and $3 will get a latte at Starbucks.

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:33 pm 41. mouse:

Utopia Parkway stated the general perception of the 2006 war perfectly:

“In the 2006 Leb war we all waited for the plan to unfold and for the ground attack to proceed to deal a knockout blow to Hezbo. It didn’t happen that way. Perhaps this time things will be different.”

The only problematic statement is the last sentence: Why should anything better be expected this time, with as yet the same Government?

There is one evidence of a difference, and that’s moral clarity, which is a force, and there are two evidences to that clarity.

–The first is deception. Reprisals were coming, that was understood, just what they would be and perhaps when would be announced after the Sunday cabinet meeting. The attack came Saturday. Certainly surprised me, very much surprised Hamas.

–The second evidence of clarity was the compression of the first wave of attack. They hit buildings, which don’t move, but the attack was over in perhaps as little as four minutes. Four minutes is plenty of time for an ordinarily ambulatory fellow to get out of a building, but four minutes, when something like this has not happened before, is not nearly enough time for a man to realize he ought to get out of his own building, rather than watch the smoke rise from across town.

The point is that the Israeli intent was not to damage infrastructure, at some cost to Hamas, the intent in fact was to kill. They were not “doing politics”, they were destroying personnel as massively as possible. This is good. If you can convince the enemy that there’s some force to your conviction, that tends to induce discouragement; if you can make a man believe that you very sincerely want him dead, you can get his attention.

I am hoping that the statements to the effect –this will be a long slog– are as deceptive as was the statement –the attack will come after due consultation. I’m hoping that Israeli intelligence has knowledge of second tier meeting spots, and that they visit those meetings tomorrow.

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:34 pm 42. Alexis:

It has become reasonably clear that the incoming Obama presidency does not plan to make war on Iran in the next four years. In the past, Israel may have been induced to hold off responding to Hamas in the hope of facilitating an American bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities. This hope has now vanished, and with that hope diplomatic leverage has vanished also.

Perhaps the beginning of freedom is losing hope in an illusion.

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:59 pm 43. Jonathan:

Re: Israeli Restraint

This has been a very USA-centric discussion. I suggest as an alternative hypothesis that US policy isn’t the main issue here, that the main source of Israeli restraint isn’t US pressure but rather Israeli self-doubt. This is what worries me. Israeli society, like other western societies (and more than ours) is split between people who still hold traditional values and elites — the political Left, the courts, govt bureaucracies, media, intellectuals — who are infected with national self-doubt. Look at how Israel’s post-modern leaders failed to respond in 2006 when Bush gave them carte blanche to pursue Hezbollah and Syria.

My fear is that the Olmert govt’s current anti-Hamas operation is mainly a pre-election stunt and that there won’t be significant follow-through. (Will they be willing to risk casualties by using ground troops?) Ideally, Israel’s govt would respond strategically, taking into account the roles of Hamas and Hezbollah as Iranian and Syrian proxies, rather than in incremental and limited fashion as in 2006. But this may be too much to hope for from Olmert’s crew, who have not yet shown any deep understanding of what they are up against.

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:02 pm 44. NahnCee:

I don’t know that it makes any difference, but just in the interests of honoring factoids, those greenhouses were purchased by the Bill Gates foundation from Israel, and donated to the Palestinians to help them set themselves up and to create jobs.

Palestinians were more interested in stripping copper tubing and wrecking what the Jews had built than in feeding themselves, so one more good deed by both Bill Gates and the Israeli’s went punished.

I despise the Palestinians, each and every one of them, and do not think there can possibly be any such thing as an “innocent Palestinian civilian”, including children over the age of 5.

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:24 pm 45. LiveFreeORdieProud:

These Remarks of Ignorance are very ignorant,”NahnCee” The residents of Gaza belong in all parts of “Israel” including Tel-Aviv and all other cities of “Israel”, They have the right and will continue to fight for that right weather or not this Ignorant US administration Understands, Just like the Liberation of Iraq will have the same fate as the cowerdly acts of the Israeli Government, Barbarian and Terrorist Bombing with the green light from the US administation that has turned Iraq to Iran on a golden plate using our American blood for no benifit. Israel will fail misreably Just like Busch Failed in this terroristic policies.

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:43 pm 46. Lifeofthemind:

I’m sure that misspelling the President’s name to resemble a beer company means something to the illiterate troll.

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:52 pm 47. zipzap:

You guys are all idiots to think that some airstrikes will win the so called war on terror. How naive can you guys be? Airstrikes that inadvertently kill civilians will only create more terrorists. After fighting 5 years in Iraq have we won the war on terror? Nope and we never will because the only thing that can fix terrorism is diplomacy.

Obama is playing a wise game here. His primary goal is to fix the US image everywhere in the world including with the millions of muslims and arabs (and not because his middle name is hussein you redneck idiots). And to make sure we handle problems of our own before rising up to be the world’s policeman. Some day you’ll thank him because only such wise actions can save us from further terrorist attacks. Taking sides only ends up hurting us and we can do better to positively grow our country than to garner more enemies for the sake of allies who neither help us nor listen to us.

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:55 pm 48. Alexis:

I DO NOT FORGET HOW HAMAS GAVE OUT CANDY ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001.

Those of you who celebrated the September 11 attacks ought to realize that some people who had been sympathetic to Palestinians before those attacks have become your ENEMIES, enemies created by YOUR IGNORANCE. You have nobody to blame but yourselves.

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:59 pm 49. Observer:

I agree with zipzap, but many rednecks voted for Obama, and I am glad Bush or Busch days are finally gone. All I got to say is “YES WE CAN AND WE WILL”

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:59 pm 50. wretchard:

Maybe the root of this conflict isn’t “land” or “statehood” or even religion. Maybe its about preserving fighting and terrorism as a way of life; as a business. Palestine is an alibi for anything, but mostly it is the justification for a mode of employment, a whole series of professions, a whole raft of contractors, a self-sustaining funding network that could not exist without continuous and never-ending war. This monster has already consumed the Palestinians; stolen their future, made a mockery of their hopes.

But sometimes I wonder if the West is any better off. How much “aid”, how many diplomatic jobs, how many tenured positions in universities, how many activist’s careers, how much research and development, weapons manufacturing, military training programs — how many jobs depend on keeping this abomination going.

This is too much of a good thing for everyone except the ordinary Israeli and Arab for the music to stop. Sometimes I wonder whether it is any more feasible to finish this war than it is to stop illegal immigration. Maybe nobody really wants either a fence or victory to happen. That would be too simple. One thing seems certain: whatever the UN or the diplomats propose isn’t going to make a dime’s worth of difference. One can’t read the drivel coming from the UN without wondering whether they are joking, mad or moronic. And no, Obama’s not going to fix it. We are in the real world equivalent of Groundhog Day. What worries me is the suspicion that some people want us to stay there.

There is something worse than war. It is war without end masquerading as a “peace process”.

Dec 28, 2008 - 12:06 am 51. Alexis:

wretchard:

I think one of the greatest abominations of modern times is the Nobel Peace Prize. Far from promoting peace, the Nobel Peace Prize promotes the appearance of peace, the appearance of progress, and the appearance of an entire “peace processing industry”.

Real peace exists when statesmen don’t need accolades for it. Real peace is created by ordinary people who neither need or want the credit. Real peace doesn’t need a Nobel Peace Prize to validate it; it exists for the sake of the people who bury the hatchet.

The Nobel Peace Prize has created incentives to prolong every conflict and drag out every war. This way, the maudlin sympathies of Scandanavian politicians can be milked for decades, never mind what trauma this causes for future generations.

Peace is possible in the Levant, but only if and when the rest of the world stops caring. As it is, the very words “The Holy Land” feed the conflict because those very words raise the political price of the real estate.

Dec 28, 2008 - 12:33 am 52. James:

Someone once said, any idot can lead his/her people into war. What countries need are leaders who will keep their people out of wars. Isreal leaders have NEVER stated an intention to war against their neiboring counties. Hammas, on the other hand, has repeatedly stated just such an intent. The Palastians suffer BECAUSE OF THEIR LEADERS. When will they rise up and say NO MORE–WE WANT PEACE. There will never, ever,(not in our life time, or the generations to come)be peace in the middle east until the leaders decide that peace is paramount. What happens in the near future, certain to be tragic, will forever be lost until such time as to the world demands that all leaders in the middle east commit to a peaceful solution to the disputes that the current leaders in Gaza use as a basis for attacking Isreal. It is pathetic, and has been so for my entire lifetime.

Dec 28, 2008 - 12:36 am 53. Observer:

But Alexis, It is the Holy Land, weather we like it or Not, The place were one day Jews, Christians, and Muslims will live Free and love each other as they do on this land, THE USA, We need to guide them into that direction of mutual respect, and Just and Lasting Peace. There are millions with rights that must be resolved, Conterary to the BS that part of the world is big enough for all to live in peace, but isn’t, never was, and will never be small enough for US to ignore, it will drag us in every time, The answer is not in empty prizes but in real leadership that can contribute in a positive, constructive fashion. Peace, Shalom, Salam.

Dec 28, 2008 - 12:41 am 54. James:

I want to repeat my poin that LEADERSHIP is everything. The U.S. is a free Republic. We chose our leaders and when those leaders (including their party) fails us, we elect some one else to lead us. Bush and the Republican party failed the American people, and the Republican party paid the price in recent elections. The Palastians need to learn from the rest of the world. When their leaders fail them, those leaders need to be replaced. I have never read that the Jewish or Palestian people are a war-mongoring people, seeking–at all costs–to destroy another country. The citizens of the middle east suffer because of the leaders they chose. When the individuals stand in solidarity against the war that their leaders want to take them down, then and only then will we see real peace. Where is the Ghandi approach in the middle east. No where to be found. I tragically sorryfull.

Dec 28, 2008 - 12:56 am 55. Observer:

Amazing, James and I may agree or disagree, but the bottom line is the same. Responsible behavioure by retards that lead the Mid east was never there, its when we have a retard leading the free world that we have trouble.

Dec 28, 2008 - 12:57 am 56. lee:

as i watch cnn in my house and get updated on whats going on in gaza and israel i cant not to think that cnn r not bringing the whole story. The way that they present the story with out bringing the fact that israel is suffering for long time a missele attack on the south, which because of this attack children cant go to school people r injured loosing their job and more difficult affect why dont they show this… can you imagine living like this for more than a year.. living with misseles droping at your home any hour.. can you picture raising children like this.. you dont realy think that israel can sit back and not do nothing?!! imagine the usa or even any country in europe get misseles on daily basis, what do you think whould be their reaction after only one or two misseles? or after 3000 like israel sufferd..
cnn i hope you r going to bring the whole story and not focusing only on one side because the media today has a lot of power and you should be even more responsable due to that

Dec 28, 2008 - 1:44 am 57. wretchard:

It is the Holy Land, weather we like it or Not, The place were one day Jews, Christians, and Muslims will live Free and love each other as they do on this land, THE USA, We need to guide them into that direction of mutual respect, and Just and Lasting Peace.

That’s all to the good, but Hamas has made its own choices; expressed it plainly, made no secret of what it wants. They’ve made up their minds to destroy their enemy through war. It is regrettable, but sometimes people make that choice and then there is nothing diplomacy can do except recognize its outcome. During the surrender ceremony on the USS Missouri, MacArthur said:

We are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored. The issues, involving divergent ideals and ideologies, have been determined on the battlefields of the world and hence are not for our discussion or debate.

There are some things which can’t be settled by diplomacy, ever. Not if people choose not to. War settles things which are non-negotiable. The destruction of Israel is not for our discussion or debate. That’s not my opinion. It’s Hamas’. What you want and what I want is not what they want. War is a terrible thing. But if the Peace Process people were around in World War 2, Patton’s grandchildren would still be on the Rhine, forever on the verge of beating the Nazi armies before the UN called for restraint. The Nazi armies would recover and a new Battle of the Bulge would be fought on odd or even years. America would still be dropping the odd atomic bomb on Japan every so often. And three generations of Germans, Japanese and Americans would know nothing but this horrible stop and go; this parody of “peacemaking”.

Terrible as it was, the best thing about World War 2 was that it ended in 1945. And as a result the relations between Germans and Americans and Japanese are far better than between the Israelis and Palestinians. Why? Because the war ended. When does this war end? Never, if the peace process people have anything to do with it. What they’ve given us isn’t peace, but a slow, prolonged, poisonous and endless war. Not a war between nations; those eventually finish. What we have instead is a war between generations. This is not a choice between war and peace. That choice has been made. It is about war until Israel is no more. Ask Hamas.

This is what’s going to happen. There will be calls for Israeli restraint after which Hamas will attack under the guise of a ceasefire until Israel strikes back again. Then it will cycle over and over and over again. And it will go on for as long as necessary until a weary world understands there is only one way it will end, for all things come to an end: Die Endlösung. The Final Solution. And someday even Europe may grow so weary they will look forward to an ending, even that ending, with relief.

One day all the hatreds and resentments that have been incubated by this ill-named peace process will jump the confines of dishonest diplomacy; and on that day Die Endlösung will meet Never Again. It’s well to remember that Armageddon is a place in Israel.

Not all Arabs want war with Israel. Not all Palestinians want Die Endlösung. Those who don’t will find a way to make peace with Israel. Those, like Hamas, which seek war, must find either victory or defeat.

Dec 28, 2008 - 1:52 am 58. Kevin:

Let me tell you guys a story. I’m sick at home and I can’t sleep so I decide to check out what’s going on in the world so I go to a popular news channel website and the article I read links here. I clicked on the link hoping to see another view on the story. What I didn’t expect was to witness first hand the cause of this, and other conflicts. That cause is NahnCee.
You see people like NahnCee can look at his enemy and extrapolate his hatred of his enemy to the entire population and conclude their lives are meaningless and expendable because they share culture and geographic constraints with his enemy.
The NahnCees of this world are Nazi gas chamber operators, Soviet executioners, and Palestinian rocketeers. They push buttons and pull triggers that end the lives of nameless human beings and never hesitate because they have convinced himself that those who died were subhuman. In their eyes they were not someone’s mother, grandfather, child, or husband; they were dogs.
Palestinian terrorist groups defended their bombings of Israeli civilians because of they require a two year conscription of both sexes. They extrapolated that anyone of any age or sex is either a soldier, a former soldier, or will become a soldier. Thus everyone in Israel is a legitimate military target. This is a ludicrous claim and anyone can see that, except NahnCee, who came to a similar conclusion with reference to Palestinian civilians.
While this NahnCee may do nothing more than post a creepy comment on a webpage a NahnCee somewhere is dumping bodies into a mass grave or sending rockets blazing into the sky. These NahnCees are the enemies of Israel and western democracy, not the a child at his sixth birthday party, as NahnCee infers. Hopefully Israel is able to maximize terrorist death and minimize civilian death, but civilians will undoubtable die. And when they are on your TV feel compassion for them because they are human and they are in pain.

Dec 28, 2008 - 1:57 am 59. Bobal:

Kevin, that’s really disgusting, uncalled for and absurd.

Dec 28, 2008 - 2:23 am 60. Michelle Renee:

Way to go Kevin. Just don’t move to any city on the San Francisco bay. Nahncee has called for al-Qaeda to take out both Berkeley and San Francisco. To someone like Nahncee if you don’t drink the GOP kool aid you aren’t a real American, you and your whole town, and you are worthy of being taken out…permanently.

Nahncee: “I would love to see an attack like this go down in Berkeley. And in the spirit of helpfulness, would be willing to wait for commando’s to be flown in from New Delhi to put a stop to it.”

Dec 28, 2008 - 2:23 am 61. twobyfour:

@ 58.

Kevin, where can one get classes on character assassinations? I hope the tuition is affordable.

Sure, NahnCee (Nancy) has a tendency to sweeping generalizations.

But if you watched Palestinian (and Gazan specifically) children programs, reviewed their textbooks, perused their their video production… you would have to come to a conclusion that their children are damaged beyond repair, poisoned with hatred, hatred, hatred, hatred… You get the point?

It’s an indoctrination machine that never stops, churning day and night thoroughly sociopathic individuals with minds blanked out to anything else but killing Jews. I don’t know whether there is a power in this universe that can repair the damage. Israel tried for decades to convince Falastineen that peace is a better option. No one can say it has not been tried. How many more decades, how many more truly innocent lives you want to sacrifice to satisfy your sensibilities?

I don’t know… Maybe Nancy is a relative of one of these 2 young men that made a mistake and took a wrong turn near Ramallah some years back. Their internal organs were paraded on trays through Ramallah and hands of participants of this murderous orgy were sunk to the emptied body cavities filled with a pool of blood.

Can you find one Thuggee today? I bet you can’t. What do you think… was it a great loss to mankind when they were extinguished to the last member? Maybe because they were truly indiscriminate–anyone but them was a potential victim as opposed to wanting to kill only Jews–you won’t mourn them?

Sometimes, you don’t have any other option left than go medieval, it was not your choice, the opponent made that choice for you.

Dec 28, 2008 - 3:31 am 62. Flipside:

Away from analysis.
Just mass kill the native americans for the new settlers build a “new free world”. Wait for a couple of a hundred years until someone with enough conscience walks in and says” we are deeply sorry”.

Just mass kill the jews in a holocaust for a “new world order” until someone with a conscience comes and says ” we are deeply sorry”.

But this one of course is a “holy war”. and England made a promise for an Israel once. Let’s wait for Israel to have their dream and for someone to say ” we are deeply sorry”.

It’s all the same again and again.

Dec 28, 2008 - 3:43 am 63. twobyfour:

61. Flipside
WWYD?

One day, very long ago, I decided that I won’t be terrorized by a class bully anymore. I waited in front of the schoolm for him and attacked him viciously, disregarding any black eye potential. I broke his nose. He squatted down and cried like a baby. In front of maybe 50 peers.

I shredded, obliterated his ego. The bully was no more. The bully died that day. That boy never terrorized or attacked anyone anymore, from that day on.

I am not sorry.

Dec 28, 2008 - 3:58 am 64. sfblue:

Hey Kev, What’s on your TV might not be the real story. Then again, it might be. We could see 50 five year old’s lined up on stretchers in a hospital and not know if they’re actually hurt or just painted and told to cry. The media manipulators in the Islamic propaganda corps have made sure that we don’t know. It’s almost as if the clock is turning back to a time before video coverage of wars was available. I’m as cynical as hell with regard to conflict footage these days and I don’t think I’m the only one.

Dec 28, 2008 - 4:01 am 65. Flipside:

Twobyfour

I agree.
But read the history and define the bully.

Dec 28, 2008 - 4:02 am 66. SamIam:

Things CAN end. Remember Rome’s final solution for Carthage.

Dec 28, 2008 - 4:14 am 67. twobyfour:

@ 64. Flipside

I did read history. In order of 10 full sized library bookcases, full of history books.

Definitions…

Read the Hamas charter and read the Israel’s founding documents.

The first says “Kill Jews”.
The second does not say “Kill Arabs”.

It’s all very clear.

Dec 28, 2008 - 4:16 am 68. whiskey:

trangbang68 –

Asked and answered:

Rice Invading Israel Hotair

Rice Invading Israel, Hotair with video. Her own words.

Mind you, this was just about 7 months AFTER 9/11.

Lifeofthemind — you laugh but women fainted at Obama and the Press worships him like some cross between JFK and Jesus. He is “Alpha” but it is a woman’s Alpha, the big shot that already people are starting to dislike, bodysurfing in Hawaii while people freeze. Believe me, that gets noticed. It’s not shown up yet in the polls, but Obama’s Big Shot ways that make women love him turn off men. He’s the reverse GWB.

Go check the links out. That’s Rice IN HER OWN WORDS. As for the tapes, I don’t have them, have not seen them, but various people have reported on what went on there. Given all the hanky-panky with Obama, Rezko, Auichi, Saddam, etc. and his habit of hanging out at places like Trinity (who wants to bet Rev. Wright to sell his books will have video, conveniently for sale, on his website, of Obama nodding along to Wright’s lunatic racist stuff against Jews and Whites, with perhaps a few special guest speeches by Obama and Michelle?) After all Obama drank in hatred of Whites and Jews in Jakarta as a child, so he’s hardly able to overcome it now. It’s the equivalent of electing someone who was in the Klan rallies as a child, and now disavows his Klan minister of twenty years.

I’m sure we will be hearing more from Rev. Wright, who has bills to pay, including a lawsuit over an affair with a married White woman (and he must prove his “Black enough” bonafides now), Rezko, Rahm Emmanuel aka Dead Chief of Staff Walking ala Blajo, and of course Blago himself who likely has all kinds of delicious info to spread about “the One.” He’s not going down alone.

Kevin — so you like all weak willed, feminized Westerners propose to fight evil with … sing alongs? A really big speech by “the One.” Bottom line: the hard boys that run Muslim nations want Israel dead, and polygamy and corrupt tribalism make nearly EVERY Muslim as willing to sign on for that, explicitly, as Germany was before, about 70 years ago. To stop it, a LOT of Muslims, including a LOT of Palestinians must be killed. Just like the Wehrmacht’s destruction took a lot of civilians, including infants and old people, piled up like cordwood.

Reality check: the more you put off fighting evil because it’s nasty, dirty, expensive, bloody, disgusting, and all sorts of things that are not cool down at Starbucks, where showing off who has the latest Apple toys is the mating ritual for cool young yuppies.

Palestinians and Syrians and Lebanese celebrated the release and the DEEDS of a guy who bashed in the head of a five year old girl after gunning down her father. In front of her. THAT is What Muslims celebrate. Sure as heck they are my enemy, and the enemy of all civilized people. But what do you expect out of a polygamous and tribal society that produces nothing but guys good at murder and with a taste for it?

Yes they are human beings. But they are NOT human beings like us. Here we regard bashing the heads in of five year olds a capital offense, if there’s not a prison yard shanking first. In Muslim countries as long as the little girl is a Jew it’s a the mark of a Hero. Nothing more speaks to the utter debasement on all levels of Muslims and Islam in general.

James — Ghandi was a bigot who hated Blacks and thought (and wrote) that they were racially inferior and destined to be enslaved, and that they should be. He advised Jews as the Holocaust was unfolding to simply die peacefully to set a moral example. I would be leery of taking advice from a well-known racist who wanted a Brahmin run India by Brahmins for Brahmins, and who failed to construct even the semblance of a modern state from the riches of India. In fact Ghandi’s legacy is all that is wrong about the West and international life in general, meaningless status games among the Glitterati and his backers but failure to actually do anything.

Muslims do not want peace. They want domination. To rule the world (they need this goal to gain any social peace in their polygamous society which produces great masses of surplus young men who will never find wives absent conquering the Kaffir and making their widows and orphans their sex slaves, something near and dear to the heart of every true Muslim man, since that is what Mohammed did and he is the “Perfect Man” … just ask them.

Wretchard —

Sorry but you are making two mistakes. One is this idea of “nations” instead of the true situation, “peoples” and in particular the Muslim people who do indeed almost to a man and woman want Jews wiped out from the face of the earth.

The other is about “peace” and that most Muslims and Palestinians want it. Rest assured almost no one wants it, but rather WAR and MORE WAR. Because Muslims are convinced as are most all Palestinians that War is a good thing. It brings the prospect of conquest, of tribute, of slaves. Most of all slaves, women to be used as chattel and sex slaves.

Your problem is that you are a 20th Century man, no offense, and you think like one. Muslims and Palestinians, even those not of Hamas, are not 20th Century men. Nations, peace, all that is soft stuff for women of the West they say, no they are of the Seventh Century. Of Mohammed, Messenger of God who killed Jews and took their widows and orphans as sex slaves for his pleasure. THAT is the unstated goal of nearly every Muslim man. Islamic society after all has not really changed much from Mohammed’s day. Even the language, culture, religious beliefs, and general attitudes towards everything is much the same. Meanwhile the Crusaders to us might as well be aliens from Alpha Centauri.

Heck half of Sweden is ablaze with Muslim and “Antifa” Youth who are staging their own Hamasistan war on Sweden to get concessions. It’s not as if they can actually build anything. War for some is a way of life. Westerners have been too soft and have not given Muslims a full taste of war, the real stuff.

Cairo has not had half it’s people killed. Riyahd has not lost half it’s sons. Mecca and Medina are not ruined wrecks with most buildings gone forever and the Kabaa a pile of dust, gone to ashes. Tehran has not seen half it’s young men all dead, all it’s great cities in ruins, women starving and offering themselves for a slice of bread or a fig.

Had the West given Muslims a REAL taste of war, in it’s full bitterness, they would not seek it. But we have not and they do. I think now Muslims will need even greater bitterness to lose their taste for War.

Germany, Japan, Britain, Italy, Russia, and the US lost it’s taste for War. Even “lucky” US lost half a million men in WWII. We all know it’s taste in full. That is the only proven way to discourage wanting it. Sherman understood (”It is good that War is terrible, otherwise men would love it too much.”)

Dec 28, 2008 - 4:18 am 69. Fletcher Christian:

#64 Flipside – On one side there is a people who have been systematically persecuted for two millennia, or perhaps more, and whom a major Western nation did its best to exterminate – and would have if they had not lost a war. This people has created a garden from useless desert.

On the other is a people that has been waging war on the rest of the world for 1350 years and counting, and has never created anything except mayhem, death and destruction – or at the very least, not for the last 800 years. Those who hark back to the Arab and Persian scientists of the Middle Ages should remember two things; one is that most of what they did was minor improvement on the work of ancient Greeks and Hindu Indians, and the other thing is that since that brief flowering they have done nothing at all except kill and destroy.

I know whose side I’m on. And who’s the bully – or rather the rabid dog. And we all know the right thing to do with a rabid dog.

Dec 28, 2008 - 4:18 am 70. Fletcher Christian:

Whiskey – I agree with everything you say except perhaps the concentration on polygamy. I would go further, though.

“Mecca and Medina are not ruined wrecks with most buildings gone forever and the Kabaa a pile of dust, gone to ashes.”

They are not half-mile-deep glass-lined craters that glow in the dark, either. They should be. So should Qom. The last of the Muslim holy sites, Jerusalem, should of course be spared – but no Muslim should ever be allowed there again. EVER.

Dec 28, 2008 - 4:25 am 71. Flipside:

I am not on the side of Hamas just to make it clear. To me they are a corrupt group of people because they already start off by refusing to fall under the allegiance of their government. Like for example, Bush was not really a favored president for a lot of decisions, yet we did not see citizens forming a small group and taking matters into “their own hands”. Citizenship dictates to not break any nation. Diplomacy is the bigger term for communication. Both need to ceaze fire, and both need to sit on one table until they reach a decision. May be very theoretical, but the fact is all Muslim countries or countries living under Islamic law are against the killing of any kind. These are the real masses, not the Hamas, Al-Qaeda…etc.
The majority of people on both ends will always be strongly supporting their side and pointing the finger at the other as the rabid dog. Put it back to true and real diplomacy. ( hopefully what’s behind the curtains is exposed to stop manipulating world’s opinion. Ya right )

What’s a 100-200 years in the age of nations? Nothing. It’s always measured by the result in the end. May be not in our time though.

Dec 28, 2008 - 4:38 am 72. Ammo Guy:

Real and true diplomacy? Like Munich in 1938? Versailles in 1919? I always loved Foch’s comment afterwards: “this is not peace, this is merely an armistice for 20 years” – which, of course, proved to be spot on. Washington Naval Treaties in the 1920s? Kellogg-Briand Pact? I could go on and on about the failures of “real and true diplomacy.” Talk to the Dutch and Belgians about how their diplomatic neutrality worked out for them in 1940. The Swiss have managed to remain unconquered not because of their dipolmatic acumen, but because they occupy and defend vigourously a mountain fortress. I fear we are merely sending Napolean back to Elba rather than to St. Helena. Sometimes you gotta stomp’em flat before you can bring about “real peace.”

Dec 28, 2008 - 4:48 am 73. Peter Boston:

I’ve been watching this dance for 40 years although it’s been going on for a very long time. The partners change but the steps and the tune remain the same.

An AP reporter could run his Palestinian byline by remote control. A fill in the blanks template about explosions and school children and a few stock photos of a grieving Arab is all you need. So long as there are Kevins it will forever remain the same.

3,000 years ago Ba’al consumed the children of the sand people who willingly exchanged their blood and their humanity for a bowl of grain and a promise of dominion of their neighbor. In a paraphrase Golda Meir said that nothing will change until the Arabs love their children more than they hate their neighbors.

They never have and perhaps they never will.

History has given us Hanniba’al. A different time. A different war. Perhaps. Maybe the wisdom that the tribe that willingly sacrifices its children to an insatiable god has no limits that lie beyond the all consuming hatred of its neighbor. Maybe the wisdom that people of a different god cannot survive a dance with evil. Maybe a time to change the tune.

Dec 28, 2008 - 4:54 am 74. twobyfour:

@ 70. Flipside:

May be very theoretical, but the fact is all Muslim countries or countries living under Islamic law are against the killing of any kind.

Well, except for stoning and beheading (or Iranian favorite–slowly lifting the transgresser with a noose around neck by a crane, or Hamas sanctioned crucifixions), and Jews, and Christians, and infidels in general … Hindus, Buddhists, pagans, wiccans, shamanic creeds, atheists… That is all not only permitted by sharia but encouraged, provided that the killings do not engender the ummah in general. See, all these are not really humans according to the mohammedan jurisprudence. Isn’t that wonderful? If we just were all mohammedans, there would be peace on earth! Except if you were a shia, then takfiris would consider you a bona fide infidel and worth killing. I am almost sure that the feeling is reciprocated by Qom ayatollahs. And let’s not talk about ahmadiyyas, they are hunted like rabid dogs at opportune moments, be it in Pak or Indonesia.

Dec 28, 2008 - 5:01 am 75. twobyfour:

PIMF, engender=endanger.

Dec 28, 2008 - 5:05 am 76. Peter Boston:

flipside

Wherever you got your education – and whatever you paid for it. You should demand a refund.

Dec 28, 2008 - 5:24 am 77. Bobal:

all Muslim countries or countries living under Islamic law are against the killing of any kind.

Against any kind killing, makes more sense.

Churchill wrote a nice letter to the Emperor of Japan, at the start of the war, declaring war, in very correct upper class language, and explained it by saying, “If you going to kill a man, you might as well be polite about it.”

Dec 28, 2008 - 6:05 am 78. RWE:

“There are some things which can’t be settled by diplomacy, ever.”

Ronald Reagan’s plan for the Cold War: “They lose, we win.”

The famous peace advocate, Jimmy Carter, took the bold step of entering into negotiations with the Soviets to REDUCE THE GROWTH RATE in nuclear weapons: SALT.

That warmonger, Ronald Reagan, scrapped SALT and ultimately negotiated a 50% reduction in nuclear weapons: START.

Dec 28, 2008 - 6:39 am 79. Fletcher Christian:

RWE – the Cold War was not won by diplomacy. It was lost, by default, by a political system that was completely incompatible with efficiency and productivity. Or to put it more simply, the Soviets lost the Cold War because they couldn’t afford to fight it any more. The only thing (and to be fair a big one) that diplomacy accomplished was to arrange for us not to make Earth uninhabitable in the meantime.

MAD does not apply to the current enemy. It probably never will; their system is even more incompatible with a technological society than was Communism. But they can, and will, win by outbreeding us – if we let them.

It’s time to end the 1300-year war. It was time to end it 20 years ago – at least.

Dec 28, 2008 - 7:08 am 80. twobyfour:

Diplomacy? Fчск yeah!

But what school?

The Fifth Element, Corben Dallas: “Anyone else wants to negotiate?”

Dec 28, 2008 - 7:29 am 81. programmer:

He who wishes to fight must first count the cost. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be dampened. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength. Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain. Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor dampened, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue… In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War

Dec 28, 2008 - 8:18 am 82. Michelle Renee:

Alexis, these words rise to a very high level indeed:

Real peace exists when statesmen don’t need accolades for it. Real peace is created by ordinary people who neither need or want the credit. Real peace doesn’t need a Nobel Peace Prize to validate it; it exists for the sake of the people who bury the hatchet.

You also dance right up to (but perhaps not truly focus on) the heart of the problem. The word “holy”. Which means set aside for YHWH/Allah/Jesus. There are no physical holy places anymore after the death and resurrection of Christ, except in our own heart.

1 Cor. 6:19 Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

Dec 28, 2008 - 8:40 am 83. Peter Boston:

but the fact is all Muslim countries or countries living under Islamic law are against the killing of any kind.

That statement is either ignorant or deceitful.

Every Islamic constitution explicitly calls for the killing of its own citizens who reject Islam or question the exalted status of Mohammad. Every major school of Islamic jurisprudence certifies the justice and necessity of killing apostates.

A simple statement like “The Muslim scholars are wrong about apostasy” is itself apostasy and would subject the speaker to murder by relative. There is no penalty in Shariah for killing an apostate.

Dec 28, 2008 - 8:43 am 84. Magnolia:

Isreal has given the Palestinians every opportunity to lay down arms and participate in a democratic, and religiously tolerant, government. What else should humanity want for? Nothing, unless you want to control and oppress your people (and others), their thoughts, and their actions through totalitarian, man-made rules to your own personal benefit. And this wouldn’t be the first time in the history of humanity that man (not God, Alah, whatever you call “the Boss”) manipulated the masses by claiming devine calling to commit human attrocities either. These power hungry, masoginistic terrorists care nothing for their faith. The faithful should step up and defeat these men who are trying to highjack their religion and distort it. If the community these terrorist monsters are trying to take over would stand up to them, others – like Israel, the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, … the list goes on … wouldn’t have to react to protect the human rights of Muslims and non-Muslims that these monsters attack. In the US, we have some pretty fanatical evangelical Christians that, if unchecked, would engage in more regular violence than they already do to push their agenda of hate and control. But the real Christians do not let them. We honor our founding fathers’ wisdom that unless church and goverment are separated, we loose our faith and our relationship with God to man and his thirst for power, control, and corruption.

Dec 28, 2008 - 8:48 am 85. John Work:

Wretchard #50. Your analysis of “perpetual war” is equally (or even more) applicable to our current American political system. How much of our society is bound up in a never ending (and never to be ended) “fight” to solve all our problems? And why would our politicians (of either party) and their web of “think tanks”, advocacy groups, lawyers, accountants, media, and others too numerous to mention want to truly solve any of these problems? Politicians aren’t in the business of solving problems; their business is creating and fostering problems. The same can largely be said of diplomats.

Dec 28, 2008 - 8:59 am 86. Dan:

#83…

Somewhere, a despot is missing their propaganda minister.

Dec 28, 2008 - 9:12 am 87. Jay:

I have come to agree with a lot of what Whiskey writes but I think that he goes overboard about young American women.
The birthrate among Arabs is very high. To get married a man must have a dowry. Poor young men can not afford a wife and they become pawns for hate mongers.
Wretchard is correct about the money and power of the Peace Process. Unlike the military those practitioners do their work in five star hotels and fancy restaurants. Note that the Left in Israel is in greater denial about the Islamic threat to their lives than our Left.
The Arabs in Israel now have become militant. They sense that the Israelis are confused and they do not want to be on a losing side.
Obama is sympathetic to the Arab cause. He will shock the Israelis and the American Jews. He uses Jews like Axelrod and Rahmbo but he only likes Leftist ex Jews.
I believe that as a result of 9/11 and and the Iraqi War many Americans have become anti-Arab and have become wary of Islam. The American ruling elite may take Saudi money and play nicey to Muslims and Arabs but ordinary people have become sick of the way Arabs behave. If they knew what the Whabbis are about they would be more than sick.

Dec 28, 2008 - 9:14 am 88. trangbang68:

Whiskey, Your Hotair video was Samantha Power not Susan Rice and nowhere called for American troops to invade Israel and turn over occupation to Hamas and Hezbollah. The link that wasn’t.
I grant the Islamist mindset is demonic, bloodsucking, murderous and unredeemable except by .556 mm to the forehead. I hope Israel turns Hamas military capacity to dust and then smacks Hezbollah down in turn.
Kevin ,you’re a fool who mistakes internet commentators for the Hitlers in headscarves who make up most of the Hamas constituancy.
Bush did the world a favor by pushing for elections in Gaza. When the Palestinians aka
Palastians in Jamesspeak (Might be why you haven’t read of Hamas Jew hatred, Jimmie. It’s not in comic books), when the Palestinians voted in Hamas they declared themselves 99% pure unadulterated children of hell and the enemies of civilization. You get what your hand calls for.
Observer, calling the President a “retard” doesn’t make for deep thought.

Dec 28, 2008 - 9:32 am 89. dan:

obama’s preserving ambuigity may just be a form of president-elect etiquette. presumably any affirmative pronouncement would be regarded as interference with a sitting executive. even if he issued the response most of us would like, i think he would be rightly criticized for usurpation, although of a mild variety.

personally i think the present israeli punishment operation serves the broader strategy of prevailing in the coming war. the increasingly aggressive regional posture of the various supposedly-disconnected flare ups – Georgia, Mumbai, Iran, Gaza – demonstrates that the enemy intends to start the dominoes soon. the only response, in my view, is pre-emption – that is, offense. i hope they follow up with a similar move in India (MSM reports Pakistani troops moving to Indian border).

the only difficulty there is the Pakistan supply line, and this must be taken into account. in the enemy’s paradigm, the initial, long-term strategic goal is to isolate one’s opponent, whether it be a national governmet or a political party or a cultural trope. it could be that all this is secretly intended to result in an exposed supply in Afghanistan, easily disrupted by “Lashkar-e-Taiba” or “Taliban.” Likewise, a deft Hezbollah move on Israel’s flank could mire them in a strenuous military effort. meanwhile, our forward command sits in Qatar, and no air-bridge to Kabul is possible. Also, perhaps, the Pak government falls and Islamists get nukes, where they are whisked away into old Soviet bunkers in the Hindu Kush.

in any case, it bears to think about this all from the point of view of: Comrade, how will you make a nuclear strike on the USA by Islamists a credible event? i personally think israel will only be threatened once the USA has been dealt with.

Dec 28, 2008 - 10:09 am 90. Peter Boston:

pretty fanatical evangelical Christians that, if unchecked, would engage in more regular violence than they already do to push their agenda of hate and control.

Is this suspension of reality day? Should I be reading more of the New York Times?

Dec 28, 2008 - 10:27 am 91. geoffgo:

89 Peter,

And no mention of Ayers…

Dec 28, 2008 - 10:41 am 92. Michelle Renee:

Wow, it looks like Egypt has sided with Israel, they are killing their brother Arabs:

Palestinians breached the border fence with Egypt and hundreds poured across the frontier, prompting Egyptian guards to open fire, said officials and witnesses on both sides.

Dec 28, 2008 - 10:45 am 93. RWE:

Fletcher: that is my point. RR won the cold War by prosecuting it to the fullest. As one former KGB chief complained in a TV interview, “In the 1980’s YOU people came after US!” As if it was an outrage that it was not the other way around, which was “normal.”

Dec 28, 2008 - 10:51 am 94. Magnolia:

89 …. brutal murder of Mathew Sheppard and other daily violence and threats against homosexuals, bombing of abortion clinics and harboring those that do it, protesting the FUNERALS of service men and women killed serving our country and freedom that are suspected of being gay…. even many of the neo natzi groups – some of which have been in the NYT recently – claim devine Christian roots to their movements, just like the Taliban or Hamas. The point is, if you can’t clean your own dirty laundry (i.e. Palestinians and all of the Arab world work internally to stop Hamas’ repeated violent attacks and move towards a sustainable peace) then Israel, the US, Nato, neighbors, …whoever, will do it for you. And would CNN stop showing all of those pictures of the carnage in Gaza that look like the only people being hit are innocent civilians that just LOVE Israel. Pleazzze!

Dec 28, 2008 - 11:00 am 95. Lifeofthemind:

To make things clear for the clueless, the Arab demonstrators in Madrid are now waving swastikas.

http://www.daylife.com/photo/09jPcmG1L91z3/gaza
http://www.daylife.com/photo/07PrdHf5BxdVP/madrid

Dec 28, 2008 - 11:02 am 96. slimslowslider:

“Comrade, how will you make a nuclear strike on the USA by Islamists a credible event? i personally think israel will only be threatened once the USA has been dealt with.”

i guess that could be the plan according to this old photo.
the simple plan

Dec 28, 2008 - 11:03 am 97. Herb:

#67 Whiskey said:
“Had the West given Muslims a REAL taste of war, in it’s full bitterness,…..
Germany, Japan, Britain, Italy, Russia, and the US lost it’s taste for War. Even “lucky” US lost half a million men in WWII. We all know it’s taste in full.”

HAMAS/Hezbollah (JV) have been running a scam on the UN and the western Left for 50 years based on the idea that Palestine was a country before the state of Israel was “created” in 1947. Israel predated all of what is now Western Civilization. The noblest act of the dying British Empire was the creation of Israel and the guaranty of its security by the US.

The failure to visit the “taste of war, in it’s full bitterness” on the H/H Joint Venture has allowed this to continue and metastasize to the point that the Whole Arab World is now “behind” the Pals (as in Lets you and him fight!). Whereas the visitation would have resulted in “Geez, that as a dumb thing they tried to do”.

The backing of the Pals offers political cover for a host of bad actors from the Sauds to Saddam to alQaida to the ayatollahs, that claim to represent the “arab street.” Thugs and thieves, the lot of them. So its hard to develop Christian Charity for the people of Islam given their embracing and support of what is obviously a continuing criminal enterprise.

However, I am compelled to think that Joe Arab doesnt care much what happens in Palestine and hopes, inshallah, he should get his next meal and die with his grandkids around him, in peace.

Dec 28, 2008 - 11:04 am 98. JFSanders:

@James,

Do you know why they call it the “Hindu Kush”?

Because people like Ghandi tried non-violent means and got Kushed/Slaughtered. By people like Hamas.

As for Israel’s two minutes HATE. It is just that. Something to PR with. If Israel was serious you would see Shermans march to the sea writ Israeli style.

The culture of Hamas never developed beyond unbroke puppy stage. They only understand peace at the most personal level. If you hurt them bad enough to scare them into suing for “peace” you would still have a unbroken puppy to deal with. As soon as you turn your back on them they will go back to what they know is successful for them.

There may be hope for their grandchildren if they are removed from the culture. Sounds harsh doesn’t it? But in reality it is what it is.

Just as Christianity sometimes breeds extremists who must be dealt with harshly. So it goes for other religions like Environmentalist and Islamists and such.

Jim

Dec 28, 2008 - 11:34 am 99. Unsk:

I’m glad that the Israelis finally got tougher with the Palestinians, but I ‘m afraid like Jonathan and Michelle R, that this is an election stunt by Ohlmert.
That is the logical answer to the question of why now?

Israel’s big problem, as well as Egypt’s and Saudi Arabia’s, is Iran and the Bomb.

The Palestinian’s are a nuisance in comparison. Time is running out on Israel to hit Iran, with Obama coming to power. This strike on Hamas does little to change the equation of that problem, I’m afraid. I’m also afraid that a tough strike on Hamas for election PR is much easier to deal with than dealing with the real issue: Iran.

Dec 28, 2008 - 12:01 pm 100. NahnCee:

Wow. Wow wow wow — I almost feel sorry for poor little Obama if the liberal anti-Israeli posters here are samples of his followers. Most can’t spell, let alone maintain any linear thinking other than “bad neo-con!” and “yes we can!”

And the one who can spell gets all his “information” from CNN. What a sad group of people for Obama to be beholden to once he takes his oath of office to Allah on the official politically-correct Koran.

Wretchard, in your thoughts on “war as a money-making economy”, you overlook how much money the United States spends on Pentagon toys. I read something a long time ago that the one thing that brought America out of the Great Depression was WW2 and the jobs created to fight that war. If Obama *really* wanted to immediately end the current recession he’d declare war on both Russia and China — a shooting war, no nukes — and watch the stock market begin to shoot back up again as Detroit’s defunct auto industry and unemployed union employees went back to work making bullets and torpedo’s.

And to the poster who caught it, yes, I was thinking about the killer bumblebees and bunny rabbits we see on Palestinian television who are busy inculcating their small children with proper amounts of hatred. There was also a picture a year or two ago of a teeny-tiny baby with a dynamite belt strapped around his snuggly little tummy. Tell me what a successful human being *that* kid is going to grow up to be!

I truly have to believe that because of the combination of Jew hatred taught from infancy and simple Arab Koran-taught hatred of everything else, Palestinians are each and every one screwed up beyond salvation and need to be terminated like a rabid Cujo.

Finally, LittleGreenFootballs reports that there *are* Arabs “rioting” in the streets over Israel’s treatment of the poor innocent Palestinians. Said Arabs being in the streets of Iraq … in a city where Saddam used to like to play … near the border to Iran. Gee. Imagine that.

Dec 28, 2008 - 12:02 pm 101. SpeakEasy:

The destruction of the greenhouses had another very important purpose: It ensured the people were unable to fend for themselves and would forever have to rely on the government for food. An empty stomach makes a compelling political argument.

Total victory is the only true solution. In this case that it also means total destruction. As abhorrent as dropping the A-bomb on Japan was it revealed our total and irrevocable resolve to end the war. And so it was ended. Only Israel can not be the first to let that genie out of the bottle for fear other Muslim Nuclear Club members would feel justified in kind. Conventional total destruction is the only solution but the will to do so must be first mustered. Let it be soon.

Dec 28, 2008 - 12:18 pm 102. dan:

re: that picture. right – give the iranians nuclear weapons, block inspection, let the middle east become the swarm, supported by post-colonial PR, to force the USA (under severe economic circumstances) into isolation. pakistan disrupted and iran w/ nukes. no need to direct them explicitly, just to enable them. a string of attacks over many years establishes capability and intent, or at least the reasonable representation of capabiilty and intent.

plans long, long in preparation. who would believe it?

then the oil supply can easily be disrupted, because who has plenty of indigenous oil? and whose oil and gas are the EU, for example, most dependent on?

and what if a nuclear detonation or two should crush at one stroke india’s ability to compete with china, and even unleash a south asian nuclear exchange?

i know amateurs think strategy and professionals think tactics/logistics, but… it is true. maybe this could all be coincidence.

Dec 28, 2008 - 12:30 pm 103. feeblemind:

Back in Biblical times was there not occaisions where the Israelites wiped out their enemies to the last man woman and child? Under Saul perhaps? Is it written they should never do that again? Any Biblical scholars out there know?

Dec 28, 2008 - 1:09 pm 104. JFSanders:

If you look back into the history of why wars are prosecuted you will see that population pressure is the root cause. See Strategy by B.H. Liddell Hart.

Who among the nations is experiencing the largest population pressure? China, India, and the Arab ME.

Who has the most to gain from war? China, Russia.

Who has the least containment of morals? China, Arab ME.

See the pattern?

Jim

Dec 28, 2008 - 1:10 pm 105. Road Sassy » Blog Archive » This and That.:

[...] Agents in the middle east are destroyed, the way the US Military did Al Qaida in Iraq. There is an interesting take on it from Wretchard at Belmont Club in a comment on one of his posts: Maybe the root of this [...]

Dec 31, 2008 - 8:17 pm

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