How predictable.
Israel’s massive, and largely successful, Gaza airstrikes represented a “disproportionate” response to Hamas violence – or so say the likes of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
But what would be a permissibly “proportionate” answer to three-plus years of ceaseless rocket barrages – thousands of missile and mortar attacks, hundreds of them in the past week alone – aimed at Israeli population centers?
To the critics, there is no Israeli right to self-defense. So, much better that Israel do precisely what is it now doing: Targeting the instruments of terror.
As Defense Minister Ehud Barak noted, “For us to be asked to have a cease-fire with Hamas is like asking [America] to have a cease-fire with al Qaeda.”
Indeed, he added, would a US president do nothing “if San Diego was being bombarded daily with hundreds of missiles launched from Tijuana?”
After all, Israel completely evacuated Gaza in 2005, removing every soldier and settler and destroying its own towns and villages. There is no more “occupation” there for Hamas to resist.
“Until now, we have shown restraint,” said Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. “But today there is no other option.”
Over the first 48 hours, Israel’s carefully targeted attacks – which clearly took Hamas by surprise – destroyed Gaza City’s main security compound, military posts, rocket-launching sites, metal workshops, the Hamas TV station and a mosque that housed armed soldiers.
Some 40 tunnels used to smuggle weapons across Gaza and fighters into Syria and Iran for terrorist training were destroyed within minutes.
True, casualties have been high.
Happily, however, most of the dead have been Hamas soldiers (including at least two senior commanders) – even though Hamas deliberately locates itself in densely populated areas, cynically using civilians as human shields.
The White House unambiguously blamed Hamas for the “the renewal of violence.” So, significantly, did Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
For Israel, there are risks to what it says will be a prolonged military operation. Its 2006 war in Lebanon, designed to root out Hezbollah, largely failed; it cannot afford a repeat of that debacle.
President-elect Barack Obama, vacationing in Hawaii, is said to be “monitoring the situation” but has declined further comment while George W. Bush is still president. But we hope that he has not changed his views since last summer, when he visited the embattled Israeli city of Sderot.
“If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters slept at night,” he said at the time, “I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”
Israel is doing just that. It needs the support of decent people everywhere.