THINK-ISRAEL

GAZA

by Bernice Lipkin

Operation Protective Edge became the latest round of a chronic war. It is a war that Resurgent Islam, flush with money and salafist dedication, resurrected against the capitalist West and against Communist Russia and China. It is a war aided and abetted, consciously or not, by anti-Israel Western liberals, particularly some in the media and academia. It is as if whoever engineered Islam's fiendishly clever ways of winning said: These are our objectives. First, we will control the framing and distribution of information by the media, by textbooks and by the professorial class. We will be the ones who say who the good guys are and who should be shunned -- facts are irrelevant. Two, using the noble concept of multiculturalism, we will marginalize the natives in countries where we settle, while sopping up available welfare funds. Third, Israel is foremost in thwarting our designs. Let us demolish her before Westerners wake up and take action against us.

If Israel continues to be indecisive and if the West only gathers strength to resist Muslim domination episodically, this war might go on as long as the Christian-Muslim encounters of the Middle Ages. Or Iran could trigger a round of fighting using nuclear weapons. Neither is a pleasant prospect.

If Israel, which has been forced into the role of a front-line state, continues to respond to terror attackers in a minimalist fashion, it will becomes weaker with each confrontation. If it doesn't deal with the increasingly arrogant demands of its Arab citizens, it will go the way of Europe, which is losing its identity to Muslim culture and sharia law. If it sheds more of its land in a desperate desire to appease the world, it will be committing suicide.

Europe isn't in much better shape. Their strategy of appeasing Muslims and siding with them against Israel was successful, at least on the surface. But now they must deal with the fact that many of their second-generation citizens of the Muslim persuasion are off to finishing school in the Middle East, learning all sorts of clever ways to maim, slaughter and terrorize. And they will be bringing their talents home.

 

TO GAZA, THEN.   There have been compelling reasons for the IDF to go into Gaza for years. What isn't clear is what triggered the operation at this particular time? Is it because kidnappings have become more frequent? Or because Gaza seems to be using much of its supply of missiles non-stop? Or because the Arabs have miles of deep tunnels that run under the border into Israel close to population centers and into Arab villages. It is said that Hamas was planning an ugly invasion on Rosh Hashanah this year when Jews were in synagogue, sending hundreds of Jihadists into Israel simultaneously through the tunnels to kill as many Israelis as they could. They planned a wholesale killing of Jews together with a large number of Arab deaths — a statistic that would be added to the count of innocents that Israel killed.

Knowledge of these tunnels isn't news. They've been used for smuggling for many years. By logic of the Egypt-Israeli peace treaty in the late 1970s, an Israeli Arab town, Rafah, was split, so that half was in Egypt, half was in Gaza, then controlled by the Jews. Tunneling began almost before the ink was dry. As with most successful businesses, tunnels grew in size and importance; they served as a shipping lane for illegal commodities. Did Israel know? How could they not? It's hard to hide a huge truck of concrete from surveillance and monitoring, but they succumbed to the usual diplomatic pressure: 'give the Arabs another chance. This time, you'll see, they'll response to civility.' Again, putting their children under the ax, the Israeli politicians consented.

Interestingly enough, the ill-fated Gaza Flotilla of 2010, run by ISM and the Turkish IHH, carried illegal concrete, which the ISM claimed was for buildings, hospitals, stores, that kind of thing. I wonder if Hamas told them how much concrete was needed for their future plans. Also of interest: in the last year, the Egyptians were said to have destroyed some 1200 tunnels. But there were many more tunnels, and they were in excellent condition when the Jews flushed many of them out in the 2014 operation.

 

IN GOING INTO GAZA Israel is responding to terrorists who target Israel's civilian population indiscriminately anywhere that they can reach in Israel. It seems Israel is again doing the right thing in the wrong way. Its major concern appears to be to minimize the damage done to the Muslim population of Gaza. A noble idea. Unfortunately, a predictable consequence is that, in see-saw fashion, Israel's citizenry continues to suffer severely from missiles that are not destroyed. And Israel loses precious sons soldiering in Gaza.

Soldiers are instructed to determine whether shooting is warranted. In too many cases, the enemy, in the form of a winsome child with a grenade, will decide for him before he can finish cogitating.

The agony of the Israeli soldier who genuinely doesn't want the child to die is profound. This attitude isn't something he came up with by himself -- it's been drilled into him as part of his training. It is so determinant of the soldier's response when in danger that some parents have resorted to advising their sons, "I'd rather visit you in jail than in the cemetery."

Israel doesn't just rely on its soldiers to protect the Gazans, it warns them when and where the IDF will attack. These quotes are genuine; they are not spoofs.

Channel 10, Israel: "the IDF has advised the residents of Nahal Oz that the five mortar launchers that have been the source of deadly mortar fire since the start of the operation include three that have not been destroyed by the IDF because they are located next to school where Gazans have taken refuge and the other two are located next to houses whose occupants the IDF hasn't yet managed to get in touch with in order to request that they leave. As a result, these mortars have been firing at Nahal Oz for 49 days."

dailyalert.org, July 31, 2014: "Three IDF soldiers were killed on Wednesday in Gaza in an explosion at a booby-trapped UNRWA health clinic in Khan Yunis that housed the opening of a tunnel, the IDF's Gaza Division commander, Brig. Gen. Micky Edelstein, said. The troops had sent in explosive-sniffer dogs and a small robot to minimize damage to the structure, but explosives rigged to the building detonated, toppling part of the building on top of the soldiers. 15 soldiers were injured."

Hamas can in large measure control where Israel strikes, simply by where it locates its armaments and "innocent civilians." The probability is high that Israel will abort a strike rather than hurt civilians. Its attacks on mosques, hospitals or schools are not casual. If Israel does strike, the Arabs have a propaganda victory, where Israel can be portrayed as so evil, it even bombs schools and hospitals. Either way, it's a win-win for Hamas. One Gaza neighborhood, Rimal, was never hit, not even once because Hamas did not stored rockets there. No military headquarters was located there. Rimal neighborhood residents were not forced to get on the roofs to protect the explosives and missiles with their bodies. This was because the residents of Rimal are the rich and the families of the Hamas leaders (see here). Rimal was an area that should have been bombed to wipe out some of the leadership.

Hamas also has some prestigious friends that help build its confidence. The UN is in collusion with the terrorists. In Gaza, UN building have been wired with explosives; mortars have been placed close to their schools; Hamas personnel mingle with the UN staff, which, itself, is mostly Palestinian Arab. The UN has been shocked, absolutely shocked, to be accused of helping attack Israel. The US State Dept has also made its sympathies clear. As one example, they sounded just as prejudiced against Israel as the UN, when after one bombing they said, "The suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians." [emphasis added] (see here.)

Both these entities put pressure on Israel to avoid doing what should be done. I haven't read any criticism of Hamas shooting at civilian centers from the UN or the State Dept. One fact is certain. Were Israel to act as a "normal" country, it would have reduced the tunnels to pits and the missiles to metal chips in a very short time. Col. (res.) Roni Bert, who served until recently as a department head at Israel's National Security Council, said:

"I am stating unequivocally, and not just based on my military experience as a colonel, but in general, that there is a military option, and that the IDF is capable, if it wants and if it is so ordered, to take over — not conquer, but take over — Gaza in two days and to conquer it, in its entirety, in a week."

Another senior IDF says it would take a week to take Gaza, and up to two years to destroy terrorist infrastructure."

 

HAMAS, IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA, had a lock not only on how the war was conducted but how the war would be viewed. Lt. Adam Landau (see here.) describes "coming face to face with terrorists holding babies as they fought, as well as children sent against them with guns." There are photos galore of the damage Israel has done to individual buildings to hype the mantra that the Jewz are the new Nazis, A single building of even a few stories covers a lot of ground when destroyed. There are even more photos of the mothers of terrorists bemoaning the fate of their blown-up sons or proud of how many Jews the darling boy killed. What you don't see is where the missiles are launched. For one who gets news just from imagery, the terrorists don't shoot missiles, because these are never seen. This is reinforced by the news media which almost universally start the story in the middle — at the point where Israel begins to destroy the launch sites. Consider: thousands of pictures and not one missile launch! Curious, isn't it? What is finally starting to be bruited about by word-of-mouth, though not stressed by al-Times of New York is that photographers are forbidden to take such pictures. And almost all are happy to comply. Hamas knows that boasting verbally is one thing, providing graphic evidence of using their children as shields is another.

Hamas is however happy to show pictures of dead families. It has been so protected by the news media, that it has grown careless, even contemptuous. Some families apparently are perpetual diers. They died in Syria and later, if Hamas media are to be believed, they died again in Gaza (see here).

It is difficult to determine how many of the "civilian" deaths are due to Israeli attacks. Rockets have misfired. Rockets blasted out of Gaza have fallen short and injured the local inhabitants. One analysis counted 192 rockets fired on a single day by Hamas. Of these, 122 hit Israel, 26 were intercepted by the Iron Dome and therefore 44 of the rockets were fired from Gaza and landed in Gaza (see here). That Hamas won't let civilians leave an area at risk of being bombed certainly contributes to the death toll. As does Hamas's practice of executing civilians they claim are Israeli collaborators.

The tunnels that were bombed can't be rebuilt in a day. Otherwise, the costs of the Israeli offensive to Hamas appear to be minimal. Ordinary people don't matter, so Hamas doesn't have the expense of building bunkers for them. And their weapons are mostly freebies. Hamas emerges capable of reequipping itself. The war is disproportionately expensive for Israel, for Dome protection costs millions even for a few days. And rocket shelters must be built everywhere. There is the additional cost for every day of fighting; and pinpoint targeting is more time-consuming than lobbing rockets indiscriminately as Hamas does.

Hamas knows that eventually it will again make use of the military seasoning and experience it gained in beating Israel to a standstill. Given Hamas's cooperation with Hezbollah and other terrorist groups also eager to attack Israel, the premature end of the Israeli action in Gaza is a dismal conclusion to an important mission. Israel still needs to wipe out Hamas and muzzle Fatah and Hezbollah, so that Israel can focus on Iran.

 

ISRAELIS MUST FIND IT DISHEARTENING that with all their precision bombing and their attempts to avoid hitting civilians as much as possible, they are still berated in the press and even by Western governments. Taking the time and the extra material to avoid injuring civilians also makes Israel more susceptible to blackmail. Western European countries that should be supporting Israel started threatening or stalling or actually refusing to send the supplies that Israel had purchased. The USA stalled on sending Hellfire missiles and other munitions. It started reviewing each request individually.

Israelis don't seem to understand that their concern for their enemies is so alien to how other countries operate when engaged in warfare that people don't understand it. That makes for fertile ground for the development of outrageous explanations. Even those who don't attribute malevolent motives for Israel's carefulness wonder why the reluctance to win decisively. Barak Seener an Associate fellow at Britain's Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies (RUSI) believes

"... Israel is pursuing a misguided approach to the war, both on the ground and in the battle of words and images. The result will inevitably [be] a deterioration of Israel's international standing, as the war wears on.

[...]   "There is so much that has been reported in Israeli news outlets but has not been reported in European outlets. This includes Hamas executing Fatah members, children digging tunnels, concrete being redirected to building tunnels rather than hospitals and schools, the affluence of Hamas's leadership who divert funding to the Palestinians to their own personal accounts, even pictures of tunnels were reported by the Washington Post a few weeks earlier than Reuters.

"If Israel chooses not to win a war against Hamas decisively then it will continue to conduct reprisal attacks while emphasizing its avoidance of civilian casualties. If it seeks to win decisively then Israel will not cede the initiative and strategic surprise to Hamas by announcing beforehand where it plans to strike. This serves to embolden Islamism and provokes them to continue their practices of human shields and firing of rockets.

"Paradoxically, the only way to win decisively is by reclassifying human shields as combatants and demonstrating that Israel will not abort strikes or hand Hamas the initiative by announcing beforehand Israel's plans. It is tragic that civilians unwittingly find themselves as combatants, but this may be the only way to demonstrate to Hamas the futility of their current strategy of human shields, which has already caused their popularity to plummet in Gaza and the broader Arab world.

"Imagine, had US forces announced to ISIS its strike plans and in turn handed to them the strategic initiative. It would be considered absurd! Israel has nothing to be proud of with such a morally dubious approach of letting Hamas know where and when it plans to strike. Israel should be consistent. If it resents being subjected to double standards, then it should not subject itself to norms and procedures that no military of any western liberal democracy would ever consider." (See here for the entire interview and video.)

 

CLEARLY, THERE HAS TO BE A SHARP CHANGE in Israel's way of sparing those who are trying to destroy it. The Jews in their long history have had previous experience in having to make a major change in how they practiced what their religion preached. Moshe Sokolow pointed out (see here) that "during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the Jewish people appear to have taken it to near-fatal excess, refusing to take up arms on Shabbat even in their own defense," a fact successfully used by their enemies to overcome them. Sokolow notes that it "required major shock therapy to remedy." Eventually, "[f]aced with the apparent contradiction in desecrating the Shabbat in order to thwart the further desecration of Shabbat, the Sages concluded, 'It is preferable to violate one Shabbat in order to observe many other Shabbatot.'"

History doesn't record how many such attacks occurred before the Rabbis remembered the Torah says, "Kill your enemy who comes to attack you before he kills you." It doesn't say to abstain on the Sabbath. Nor does it say to abstain if an Arab cuddles his first born while shooting at you.

The solution for Israel in this latest moral quandary is simple: Get sloppy. Have one missile do the work now done by a large number of more precise rockets.

 

THE YAZIDIS HAVE JUMPED UP TO THE TOP SPOT in getting media attention. The Yazidis are a small clan. And those who do them injury, the members of ISIS, are linked to the Yazidis in the headlines, where they are discussed as if they just sprang full-blown from the pages of the Koran. That isn't the case. They've been around for quite a while. They've been evil for quite a while. They may be a touch more dramatic than other salafists but they are imbued with the same dedication to have Islam politically powerful as are the other terrorist groups in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

ISIS didn't just work towards a caliphate. They declared it was in existence. That's a cute stunt but it won't happen without a lots more hard killing, of the sort they've been doing for some years now.

There are media theatrics going on that suggest the concern for the Yazidis may be the opening salvo in the USA returning to Iraq to carpet-bomb ISIS-infested areas. The sudden concern for the Yazidis reminds me of what happened in Nixon's time when he started defrosting relations with China. Suddenly, a ping-pong tournament with American and Chinese participants was in all the news, as if ping-pong players were leading the politicos to a sudden burst of goodwill. It was clumsy PR then. The sudden interest in the fate of the Yazidis isn't much better. Why now? Why ISIS? My guess is that the Obama Administration continues to favor the Muslim Brotherhood and the Muslim Brotherhood may see Iran as the side to back to win the nuclear stakes. The Brotherhood is on the outs with the Saudi Arabian and Egyptian leadership. Of course, this being the Middle East, the kaleidoscope may quickly shift to an entirely different configuration of alliances.

In the last few days, we may have received the answer to the Sudden Concern Re Yazidis (SCRY) syndrome. Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, was visiting Iraq. In response to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari's asking that everyone help Iraq fight terrorism, Zarif said, "We are cooperating and working... with the Iraqi government and with the Kurdish government in order to repel this very serious, atrocious group [ISIS]" (see Newsmax, August 25, 2014). Iran may have removed yet another block that could trip up its development of nuclear weaponry. And Obama may be moving closer to Iran in the struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the fight for domination of the Middle East.

That the American Administration is suddenly caring about what happens to Yazidis doesn't negate that they really are suffering. We should care about them. We should care that 4-year old Daniel Tragerman, an Israeli child, was killed. Five mortars have been operating against his kibbutz; the IDF didn't blast away the weaponry that killed him, because it would mean killing Arab human shields. We should care about what is happening in the Arab countries, not just in Iraq to the Yazidis. We should care about the Copts burnt in their churches, their wives raped, their children kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam. We should care about the utter chaos we unleashed in Libya, leaving many an innocent civilian see his life in shambles. We should care that Syrian civilians are being killed by government troops because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time and Shi'ite civilians are being killed by the Free Syrian rebels because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Can anything be more barbaric that the Boko Haram kidnapping and selling into slavery hundreds of young Nigerian Christian girls and then returning to the village to kidnap the men and boys? Like ISIS, Boko Haram has established an Islamic Caliphate, this one in Nigeria. Like ISIS, they have slaughtered people and burned their homes. (See here and here.) Why are the media indifferent to them?

If there is soon to be a giant sweep of the area to destroy ISIS-held area, this may be an excellent time to actually wipe out Hamas, and en passent Hizbullah and some of the other biggie terror groups waiting for a propitious time to pull the cord around Israel's neck. Anything less is just another training session in which Israel seasons an enemy force which will be harder to break up in the next round.

If there is a Western attack on ISIS, there will be, as they say in the trade, collateral damage. Thousands of ordinary Iraqis will die. But if the Big Powers are blasting away, Israel can hardly be condemned for acting somewhat the same. In fact, she can make a better case for her actions, because the Palestinian Arab population is in the main supportive of Hamas's mission, even if it doesn't want to suffer any consequences to themselves and their families.

If Israel does change and acts to inflict serious damage on Hamas, this needs to be accompanied by a forceful PR campaign to tell the world that Hamas and the splinter terror groups inhabiting Gaza have to be eliminated and the common Arab set free. This goal is non-negotiable. Press releases would stress Israel is using what resources it has to help save Western democracy from the Salafist-initiated jihad to impose Sharia law on everyone on the planet. It isn't as if the choice for Israel was binary: pin-point attacks that cause minimal damage or savagery a la the Muslim Jihad. if Israel were to start broad-brush bombing and surprise attacks, she will still not be disproportionate in responding to Hamas's continued harassment. She certainly won't be committing atrocities. The IDF won't be shooting toddlers in the spine deliberately for target practice as they do in Syria. Jewish soldiers won't be slicing open an "enemy" soldier and eating his liver. They won't be sending young children out to fight or wear explosive belts to blow up the terrorist militias.

And the world will give them credit for their forbearance more than it does now.

This new tactic could prove serendipitous. Given that the Jews will have paid for the first stage of urban renewal, why rebuild Hamas on what is land that belongs to the Jews legally, historically, biblically and by conquest. Why create a setup for a future round of death and destruction. This is an opportunity to move the Arabs from Gaza and the Territories and the Arab refugees and their descendants and their descendants' descendants and all the Arabs who converted to "refugeeism" to some large swatch of the Arab-held land. Put Western money into helping them become civilized, if that's what they want. Or let them satisfy their lust for death, if that's what they crave, so long as they keep it in their own territory. Just make sure they aren't near Arab population centers until they are ready for polite society. See Palestina. See also "A Strategy for Making Peace with the Palestinians" by Max Singer here. Or deduct a significant number of Arabs from what seems an intractable problem by making them citizens of the Arab countries where they have lived, many for half a century (talk about apartheid!). Some writers have proposed giving them a dowry to sweeten the deal with the recalcitrant Arab Heads of State, who don't want to lose the propaganda value of refugees living in "alien lands" (five minutes from their old homes in some cases and in a similar cultural environment in all cases, except those now living in the West.)

 

AS THIS ARTICLE WAS BEING WRITTEN, Israel has just started yet another "Israel ceases, Hamas fires" episode. We end with some quotes. The first is part of a letter by a group of pro-Israel Hollywood movie people, a handful of people, as small a group as those in Hollywood more than a half century ago courageous enough to stand up to Senator Joe McCarthy, who was on the Right and as illiberal then as the liberals on the Left are today. Incidentally, the letter should also have noted that the mosques store machetes and other weaponry and the UN buildings harbor mortar.

Hamas cannot be allowed to rain rockets on Israeli cities, nor can it be allowed to hold its own people hostage. Hospitals are for healing, not for hiding weapons. Schools are for learning, not for launching missiles. Children are our hope, not our human shields.We join together in support of the democratic values we all cherish and in the hope that the healing and transformative power of the arts can be used to build bridges of peace (in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard)

Next, a statement by Amel Nona, the 47 year-old Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, who fled the Sunni "re-awakening," IS-led jihad in northern Iraq to Erbil, Kurdistan (in Corriere Della Serra August 10, 2014 and submitted by Andrew G. Bostom to Family Security Matters, August 27, 2014).

Our sufferings today are a prelude to what even European and Western Christians will incur in the near future. Your liberal and democratic principles here [in the Middle East] are not worth anything. You need to rethink our reality in the Middle East because you are receiving in your countries, an increasing number of Muslims. You too are at risk. You have to take strong and courageous decisions, at the cost of contradicting your principles. You think that men are all the same. It is not true. Islam does not say that all men are equal. Your values ​​are not their values. If you do not understand in time, you will become victims of the enemy that you welcomed into your home."

And finally, a sensible comment by an IsraPundit Reader, Topaz, (http://www.israpundit.org/archives/63599402/, August 23, 2014). It's long but strong and very wise.

I feel like there is no use in writing or talking. I believe that only the Israeli people can stop this, they must finally march on the Knesset and demand that strong military leaders take control and end this slide to cooperation in destruction. Any sane country knows what to do. And does it FAST. Very sad, But, here it goes anyway.

1) It is no longer '67 lines. It is 1948 lines that is the current demand.

2) Pound Gaza into rubble. ALL buildings not homes. Total blockade. Total surrender. Do it in two hours. Send a message to the world, "Don't mess with us." AND "Jewish lives are OUR priority."

3) Legally indict ALL terrorist leaders, perpetrators. Then find them wherever in the world they are hiding. This does not stop. Be silent, admit nothing.

4) Use advanced technology to find the tunnels, blast them all from the air with advanced weaponry that Israel already has.

5) Stop holding back with artillery or any other weapon the US is demanding Israel avoid. This agreement is madness.

6) RESPOND TO EACH ATTACK, for each person living in Israel that is wounded or killed, WITH 18 TIMES THAT. EVERY TIME. NOW.

THIS IS WHAT WILL BE RESPECTED. If Hamas sends 50 rockets, Israel sends 50 times 18, within minutes. . If the perpetrators come from other than Gaza, hit Gaza anyway, send that message. ONLY fear of an immediate and overwhelming response will get the Quiet for Quiet that Israeli leaders say they are seeking

7) The borders with Gaza, Jordan, Sinai, Lebanon, Syria. Create a wall far, far down, as deep and as thick as it takes. Put up a fence around Gaza, as high and as thick as it takes. Electronics to detect any incursions. Strong surveillance from the sea and air.

8) Israel must finally, finally, finally, finally, finally, finally, finally STOP letting anyone speak to the media who is not specifically trained. WHY is Israel speaking during WAR. Another stupid.

9) BECOME FINANCIALLY AND MILITARILY INDEPENDENT, FINALLY!!!!! Send out a call to those who love Israel for financial help to remove that yoke.

10) Expel ALL UN, NGO's, the Red Cross-Red Crescent, journalist entities from Israel and from Gaza. Do NOT let them come back, until this deed is done. Fast.

11) RE: The Arabs out of Gaza and Samaria and Judea. NO ONE WILL TAKE THEM, THESE COUNTRIES KNOW THE TROUBLE THEY WILL BE IMPORTING. MONEY talks. So, AFTER surrender, rebuild GAZA to a thriving country, ONLY with Israeli money.

12) No possibility of prisoner to swap.

 

IF ISRAEL'S PULLBACK IS INDICATIVE OF A DEFEATIST MINDSET, we should be very concerned that the politicians didn't finish the job. What can we expect if the politicos don't have the courage to clean out the terrorists? They are likely to go back to doing what they know how to do -- give away Jewish land and/or political control in return for a piece of paper that has "peace" written on it.

Caroline Glick describes the consequences for Israel, should she cave in and accept another partial victory (see Think-Israel, this issue.). Some are:

"... a post-war Gaza will quickly become a local version of Islamic State-controlled Mosul... such a development will render life in southern Israel too imperiled to sustain. The Western Negev, and perhaps Beersheba, Ashkelon and Ashdod, will become uninhabitable.

"If, as the US demands, Israel allows Gaza to reconnect with Judea and Samaria, in short order Hamas will dominate the areas. Militarily, the transfer of even a few of the thousands of rocket-propelled grenades Hamas has in Gaza will imperil military forces and civilians alike. IDF armored vehicles and armored civilian buses will be blown to smithereens.

"Whereas operating from Gaza, Hamas needed the assistance of the Obama administration and the Federal Aviation Administration to shut down Ben-Gurion Airport, from Judea and Samaria, all Hamas would require are a couple of hand-held mortars."

Aside from the dangers to Israel's security, it would allow ISIS, which is already in the Gaza Strip to expand. The consequences for Egypt and Jordan are dire.

EITHER Israeli politicians stop acting in accordance with their fear of being flayed by the foreign press and pressured by Muslim-controlled Westerners OR their citizens will increasingly be prey to Hamas and Fatah and Hezbollah and IS and dozens of Al-Qaeda affiliates on both sides of the Sunni-Shiite struggle. And Israel will corrode away.

To put it another way, given that Hamas's charter states clearly it exists to destroy Israel, a strategy of minimal reaction and appeasement isn't stupid, it's suicidal.