Hamas and terrorism

So this latest attack by Hamas was entirely predictable. So is the next one. Hamas's legitimacy and public approval had dimished quite a bit in recent months, so they allowed the cease-fire to expire, and starting shooting rockets again. The Israelis did the predictable thing and fired back, quite a bit stronger, and now Hamas gets the benefit of sympathy for dead civilians. The locals is Gaza will have to stand behind their "elected government". Hamas is only legitimized by opposing/attacking Israel, so it had to do it. And it will do it again.

Make no mistake about this: Hamas has no intention of EVER concluding any peace deal with Israel. Not going to happen, any more than Arafat was going to. It's not what they want. Arafat's existence and continuation as PLO leader was permanently predicated on the ongoing suffering and victimization of the Palestinians.

Granted, Israel is being very heavy-handed about some things, like the blockade Hamas wants halted. That could be done differently--of course Israel is worried about the importation of weapons, which would inevitably happen, but then again it's already happening, isn't it?

By the endless self-victimization practiced by Hamas and the PLO, the Palestinians manage to be permanently the target of sympathy by the rest of the Arab world, and Israel continues to be hated. This is their goal.

But of course the rest of the Arab world is equally vested in this arrangement; witness the land blockade of Gaza by Egypt--that border is closed--if the Egyptians wanted to actually *help* the people of Gaza, it'd be trivial to do so. In some larger political sense, that's not in Egypt's interest, it'd look too much like peace with Israel, assimilation of Gaza, and the permanent existence of Gaza as separate from a Palestinian return--i.e., a separate nation-state--and the end of a good reason to continually harangue Israel about Gaza.

So the person quoted in the Wash Post yesterday: "why were my children killed? did they have AK-47s?" No, they were killed because the adults failed to report the presence of terrorists among them, and when those terrorists attacked Israel, Israel hit back. So I say to the people of Gaza: you want peace, stop shooting rockets at Israel. Report to appropriate authorities (by which I mean not Hamas) others in the population who would undermine or prevent that peace.

And be glad that it's not me in charge of the Israeli army--I would have been on tv saying "for every rocket launched at Israel, we will immediately flatten 3 buildings in Gaza. And the bulldozing of the rest will start after one week." I would raze Gaza to the ground, leaving nothing larger than a basketball standing. Push everyone out, into Egypt. Once Gaza is cleared, shoot at anything that moves. Turn Gaza into a live-fire bombing target practice zone, permanently.