Why I don’t care

I’ve not taken any interest in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, because, as I explained a week ago, the day before the offensive was launched, it does not mean that Israel is now set on defending itself and defeating its enemies. It means only that the Hamas mortar and rocket attacks on Israeli civilians—6,464 over the last three years—had become “unbearable,” as Tsipi “Sniffly” Livni put it. Instead of using force against Hamas in Gaza three years ago, as any self-respecting country would have done, the Israelis only struck back when the mortar and rocket barrage had increased in frequency to the point where the Israelis just couldn’t stand it any more. This is in keeping with the modern-liberal axiom that force should only be used as a “last resort.” All of which suggests that as soon as the Hamas mortar and rocket attacks on Israel decline below the “unbearable” threshold again, Israel will return to its usual policy of appeasing and seeking “peace” with the Arabs. So I don’t care about this latest “war.” When Israel shows that it has the will to act like a real country, then I’ll care.

Charles Krauthammer quotes an AP report from December 27:

Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.

His point is that while Israel tries to spare enemy civilians even at the cost of the element of surprise and the lives of its own soldiers, the Arabs seek to kill as many Israeli civilians as they can. I agree that a country at war should seek to avoid unnecessary civilian deaths. But I also wonder whether the delicacy for which Krauthammer praises Israel is separable from Israel’s pathetic liberal attitude that has allowed its enemies to keep attacking it.

Krauthammer continues:

Israel’s only response is to try to do what it failed to do after the Gaza withdrawal. The unpardonable strategic error of its architect, Ariel Sharon, was not the withdrawal itself but the failure to immediately establish a deterrence regime under which no violence would be tolerated after the removal of any and all Israeli presence—the ostensible justification for previous Palestinian attacks. Instead, Israel allowed unceasing rocket fire, implicitly acquiescing to a state of active war and indiscriminate terror.

Ridiculous. The Hamas attacks commenced as soon as Israel had withdrawn from Gaza. Sharon has been out of the picture for three years. Yet the Israeli leadership since then, with the acquiscence of the Israeli people, have allowed their country to be continually bombarded. So clearly Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza cannot be separated from Israel’s subsequent failure to defend itself, and the failure cannot be put off on Sharon.

Krauthammer concludes:

Hamas’s rejection of an extension of its often-violated six-month cease-fire (during which the rockets never stopped, just were less frequent) gave Israel a rare opportunity to establish the norm it should have insisted upon three years ago: no rockets, no mortar fire, no kidnapping, no acts of war. As the U.S. government has officially stated: a sustainable and enduring cease-fire. If this fighting ends with anything less than that, Israel will have lost yet another war. The question is whether Israel still retains the nerve—and the moral self-assurance—to win.

I don’t think that there is any question to be asked here. I think that all the evidence clearly tells us that Israel does not have the nerve and moral self-assurance to win. If it turns out that it does, then that will be the news, not the present counterattack on Gaza.

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Lydia McGrew writes:

Re your comment on Israel’s offensive in Gaza, I’ll tell you what I find the most depressing thing to think about in that regard: I believe Israel’s goal here is to hand the Gaza strip back to Fatah. Think about that. If Israel gets up the will to launch a ground offensive (which will be necessary to win the strip from Hamas) and wins, all the casualties in that ground offensive will simply go for the purpose of handing it over to the PLO. Inevitably, then, either Fatah will start acting like Hamas, Fatah will unite with Hamas, or we will go through the previous cycle all over again, in which Hamas comes in, throws the Fatah guys off of tall buildings, and retakes Gaza along with the weaponry that Israel has given Fatah with which to “fight Hamas.” And one way or another, the rocket attacks on Sderot and other cities in the region will start back up again. That’s what’s most depressing of all. Israel’s leaders are unwilling to admit that leaving Gaza was a mistake and that Gaza must be occupied for the indefinite future by the Israeli military if there is to be any possibility of stopping the rocket attacks.

LA replies:

That’s very insightful. I think you’re right.

January 3

Jeff in England writes:

Annie Lennox (rock singer) on British television condemning Israel violence, while saying, yes, Hamas were wrong but Israel is using the provocation to massacre Palestinians. Where was she when Hamas were firing their rockets into Israel for several years?

As you said, this attack is far too late, Israel should have done this three years ago and at best will get some sort of truce again which will not solve the situation in any way…they needed to kill every Hamas leader, not one or two.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 02, 2009 01:21 PM | Send