Israeli Attacks on Hamas Justified
By Dr. Earl Tilford
December 30, 2008

The Hamas Charter proscribes peace with Israel. Ceasefires are possible only when advantageous to Hamas and always are temporary. Accordingly, as soon as the latest ceasefire expired, Hamas operatives fired a barrage of rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israel. On Dec. 27, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) responded with air attacks on specific terrorist targets including training camps, command centers, rocket manufacturing facilities and military storage areas. While there will be collateral damage and innocents killed or maimed, the majority of the nearly 300 persons killed so far are Hamas operatives.


As soon as the first strikes went in, Hamas released video images of children being carried to ambulances. The world will continue to see homes and apartments turned to rubble, lots of injured children and weeping mothers. In most—not all, but most—cases this is pure fiction. Hamas provides the pathos the Western press craves.


Israel’s concerted response has also been measured. As of Dec. 28, 210 fighter-bomber and attack-helicopter sorties had delivered 240 munitions of various sorts from laser-guided bombs to Hellfire anti-tank missiles. These precision-guided munitions limit collateral damage. The word “response” is important.


Absent provocation, there would be no Israeli attacks on Gaza. Hamas launched over 300 rockets and countless mortar shells in the six days following the cease-fire. Evidently the terrorists used the ceasefire to rebuild and restock their arsenals. Nevertheless, a United Nations condemnation of Israel is almost certain. Passions in the Arab world run high with promises to avenge the deaths in Gaza. Many Western governments will add their condemnations as the American Christian left chimes in with a chorus of loquacious laments.


One wonders how the world would react if Spain moved forcefully to stop Basque terrorism or if the American Christian left would bleat quite so loudly if Mexican insurgents targeted San Diego with rocket and terrorist attacks. How would Britain react to similar attacks launched by the Irish Republican Army? Why should Israel be denied the right to respond to aggression? How many rockets does it take to warrant a strong and decisive response?


An Israeli ground invasion may be forthcoming. It will be bloody because Hamas is dug in and ready to make it costly for the IDF. Urban warfare, especially amid the rubble and ruin of city streets, is the most difficult form of modern warfare. Nevertheless, Israel is justified in moving decisively against Hamas.


Three years ago Israel pulled out of Gaza, using military force to remove Jewish settlers and relinquishing its southern border crossings to Egyptian control. Israel offered the Palestinians an opportunity to live side-by-side in peace. How did Hamas respond? Hamas fighters took over Gaza in a wave of violence, murdering hundreds of Palestinian political rivals and destroying much of the urban infrastructure left by the departing Israelis. One example was the destruction of greenhouses in northern Gaza, facilities that could have provided food and potentially agricultural exports for the Palestinian economy. Hamas destroyed these facilities because Jews built them. Israel offered its hand in peace and Hamas responded with shouts of “Next year in Jerusalem!”


Then came the incessant rocket attacks into nearby Sderot and Ashkelon, a major metropolitan area just north of Gaza. Over three years, Hamas fired thousands of rockets and mortars into Israel and in 2006 dug a tunnel into Israel to kill two Israeli soldiers and kidnap Israeli Private Gilad Shalit, whose fate remains unknown.


And what of Egypt? Israel’s “partner in peace” allowed Hamas to dig over 100 tunnels under its border with Gaza. Egyptian border guards looked the other way while weapons and ammunition flowed through those tunnels into Gaza.


Israel and the Palestinian Authority are in agreement over the creation of a Palestinian state. Negotiations are over where the lines will be drawn. Hamas’ intransigence and terrorist attacks complicate those negotiations. Indeed, Hamas does not want any agreement with Israel. It is impossible for Israel to reach an accommodation with an entity dedicated to its extermination. The only hope for attaining a just peace in this tragically afflicted region is the complete destruction of Hamas.

V & V
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Dr. Earl Tilford, a fellow with The Center of Vision & Values at Grove City College, is currently working on a history of the University of Alabama in the 1960s. A former Air Force intelligence officer and former Director of Research for the U.S. Army’s Strategic Studies Institute, Dr. Tilford earned his PhD in American and European military history at George Washington University.

One side is completely defenseless with a few homemade junk weapons and the other side has 21st century high tech weaponry and is using it to blow the crap out of a defensless population that doesn't even have food.



Seems a little one sided to me.

While I do not support Israel, this argument is easily refuted by noting that the weaker side had actually provoked the retaliation.

Let us say that a poor and crippled man is continuously defacing your BMW. You tried to talk, you pushed him away, you installed security. He still goes after your beemer. Your move?

Dr. Tilford is a piece of work.

Have you read some of his other stuff too?

I really like his admission that because he was afraid of going to Vietnam he supported using nukes there. Does this piece surprise me?

Not much.

He's been a supporter and an apologist for Israel for some time.

Poor terrorist...they have nothing to fight with...too bad for them.Maybe you can make a donation to them so they can get better weapons.I wish Israel had some B-1 bombers so they could do some massive carpet bombing there.

THOSE PEOPLE ARE NOT EVEN ALLOWED FOOD.

THEY LIVE IN SLAVERY

I WOULD BE PISSED OFF TOO


My move?

I dont murder the poor crippled man.Thats my next move. Its called having mercy. Its called being humane.

5 Israelis vs 500 Palestinians (mainly non-combatants)
F16s vs home made pipe bombs
10,000 troops armed with state-of-the-art weapons (funded and supplied by the US) vs rag-tag militia with old AK47s and sticks and stones (funded by Iran) - who were funded by the US.

Yep! seems totally justified response to me!

The goal of Israel’s campaign is to stop—or at least significantly reduce—the rocket fire, just as it was in the month-long war between Israel and the Lebanese Hizbullah in the summer of 2006.

Then, Mr Olmert was advised that aerial bombardment could silence the missile launchers, but Hizbullah’s missiles proved resilient (they were also more lethal than those used by Hamas now).

Three weeks later, and with a third of Lebanon virtually paralysed, grounds forces were sent in.

They performed poorly against the entrenched Hizbullah fighters and a cease-fire after three days left Hizbullah free to claim victory and Israel’s military and political leaders embroiled in mutual recriminations.

It is true that Israel has put up with the rockets from Gaza for a long time. But it may have been able to stop the rockets another way. For it is not quite true that Israel’s only demand in respect of Gaza has been for quiet along the border.

Israel has also been trying to undermine Hamas by clamping an economic blockade on Gaza, while boosting the economy of the West Bank, where the Palestinians’ more pliant secular movement, Fatah, holds sway.

Even during the now-lapsed truce, Israel prevented all but a trickle of humanitarian aid from entering the strip. So although Israel was provoked, Hamas can claim that it was provoked too. If Israel had ended the blockade, Hamas may have renewed the truce.

Indeed, on one reading of its motives, Hamas resumed fire to force Israel into a new truce on terms that would include opening the border.

Israel should not be surprised by the torrent of indignation it has aroused from around the world.

This is not just because people seldom back the side with the F-16s.

In general, a war must pass three tests to be justified.

A country must first have exhausted all other means of defending itself.

The attack should be proportionate to the objective.

And it must stand a reasonable chance of achieving its goal.

On all three of these tests Israel is on shakier ground than it cares to admit.

Thanks for explaining that to us all and showing everyone that reads this the way you think.

Gaza hospital overwhelmed by dead, wounded

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writers Ibrahim Barzak And Diaa Hadid, Associated Press Writers – Mon Jan 5, 3:32 pm ET

Palestinians carry the bodies of three toddlers Ahmed, Mohamed, and Issa AP – Palestinians carry the bodies of three toddlers Ahmed, Mohamed, and Issa Samouni, who according to Palestinian …

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Wailing in grief, Salah Samouni banged his head against a wall inside the hospital morgue where the bodies of his three young nephews lay on the floor Monday.

After 10 days of a relentless Israeli assault, Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, is overwhelmed. Bodies were crowded two to a morgue drawer, and some — like 3-year-old Issa, 4-year-old Mohammed and 5-year-old Ahmad — were on the floor.

Shifa's shabby halls echoed Monday with the sounds of people screaming and the wail of ambulance sirens. Many of the wounded were being treated in hallways by harried doctors and nurses running on little sleep. The hospital was powered by emergency generators after shelling damaged power lines.

Since Israel began a ground offensive Saturday, most of the dead and wounded arriving at Shifa are civilians, as Israel's offensive shifts from airstrikes to artillery shelling and fighting close to densely populated areas.

Israel says it is targeting only the Hamas militants who control Gaza in an attempt to halt seven years of rocket fire at Israeli communities. But the 550 Palestinians who have been killed include at least 200 civilians, according to Dr. Moaiya Hassanein of the Gaza Health Ministry.

On Monday, 20 children between the ages of 2 and 15 were killed, he said. Since the military offensive began Dec. 27, three Israeli civilians and two soldiers have been killed.

Nurse Ahmad Abdul Salam, 34, red-eyed and smelling of sweat, his clothes stained with blood, said he couldn't sleep. "When my shift ends, I help my colleagues. These are our brothers and friends who are being harmed," he said.

The hospital's most gruesome scene was in its morgue, where blood pooled on the floor and refrigerators meant to hold 35 bodies were crammed with 70, laid side-by-side in drawers.

Lying on a gray mat on the floor, the three Samouni brothers appeared baby-faced and almost as though they were asleep, except for a large bandage wrapped around Issa's head.

The children's father was also killed in what relatives said was an Israeli strike on a house in eastern Gaza City where the family had fled to escape fighting nearby.

Relatives wept Monday and one man screamed for help for other family members he said were buried under the rubble of the house. "For God's sake, rescue them!" he pleaded.

No militants were seen at Shifa. Israel says its forces have killed dozens of Palestinian gunmen, but Hamas has not listed its casualties and it is unclear where militants are being treated or where their bodies were taken.

Shifa has been powered by generators since power completely cut out in Gaza City three days ago. Israel has not replenished Gaza's power station with industrial fuel since fighting began, and airstrikes have badly damaged power lines.

U.N. health official Mahmoud Daher said the generators were meant only as an emergency backup and he feared they would break down with the constant use, imperiling some 70 people hooked up to lifesaving equipment.

Throughout the day, exhausted medics rushed in with the wounded and the bodies of the dead.

Mohammed Salman, 26, a volunteer medic washing blood from the inside of an ambulance, said he had treated people with horrific injuries, including headless children and a woman whose stomach had been torn open.

The woman screamed, "Leave me and save my children," he said, and burst into tears.

Israeli aircraft have hit three ambulances in Gaza since the campaign began, killing seven medics, according to Gaza health officials.

A medical building owned by a relief organization not connected to Hamas was also bombed, said Daher. He said the building was destroyed, along with an ambulance, three mobile clinics and donated medicines.

The Israeli army says it has no records of any of those strikes.

Raed Arini, a Shifa hospital official, said he has stopped filling out the space on death certificates that says "reason for death."

"The reason for death is the Israeli army," he said, as medics rushed in with more wounded people.

Why on earth would you ever want to harm civilians?

I am sorry, this isn't the answer. Should we understand this as that you will ALLOW the poor and crippled man to continue to deface your BMW?

Its a poor analogy.

Try this one.

I starve you, I prevent you from getting medical attention, I systematically brutalise your family, and then when you fight back with your bare hands, I then beat you senseless with a large stick and I get lots of friends to help you.

They are all in this together.That's why a single Muslim has not spoken up or protested against Hamas.I'm sure the civialians don't feel too bad every time they hear one of their suicide bombers killed a bunch of people in Isreal.Actually they usually have a big celebration.They have fully supported terrorism,fully supported rocket attacks,and will continue to give money to Hamas to continue their terrorism against Israel.If they didn't want to die in a war they did not support they would protest Hamas and their rocket attacks.

...and... what do you want to know with your analogy?

I was asking him about his own mercy... What are you asking here?

Someone decides that you are not allowed to go to work because it's convenient for them, you are not allowed food because it is convenient for them, you are not allowed medical aid because it is convenient for them. Members of your family get killed because someone else got pissed about the situation. Your reaction would be??

As far as carpet bombing goes. Sure, causing more civilian casualties will really do the job. I can definitely see that bringing the average Palestinian to the Israelis way of thinking.......................NOT!!!!!

Say we are them. We voted for Hamas for President and bad things happened.

That does not mean that everybody in the U.S. - men, women and children - were in on what our President was doing.

What you are saying is ludicrous.

The civilians are not part of Hamas.

Do you think that the Iraqi people were 100% behind Saddam with their own free will too?

Human life is more important than a damned BMW. And there are hundreds of poor crippled men ,women, and children (babies)being killed in their homes where they are hiding RIGHT NOW. Its too late for over 500.This military action against defensless civilians is an atrocity and it is evil and none of the silly rationalizations is going to change my mind on what I know is good and what is evil.I see one side that is primitive and defensless getting massacred by a far more powerful and high tech nation.Thats what is happening and most of the world knows it.

Hamas is hardly a rag tag army Sir.They are a well funded,well organized terrorist origination that have launched the most modern missiles against Israel made in Iran.They are equipped with modern firearms and they don't use pipe bombs,they use many packs of C-4 strapped to their bodies.

Im asking why you should have sympathy for me beating an annoyance and his family to within an inch of his life, when all the annoyance is doing is asking for the fundamental human right to exist - the answer is that you shouldnt.

karmafury,

There is no use to mix good and bad arguments together, unless we just going to gang up on everybody and force our opinion.

I was refuting a bad argument that one side is weak and another is strong. In itself it means nothing. Yes we should talk of the origins of the situation. But to simply say that one is strong and another is weak is like saying that US should immediately surrender to (supposedly existing) al qaeda, just because it is small, and allow it to do anything.