Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
I appreciate your asking, honey.
You're perfectly correct: the Gazans deliberately targeted a school bus with an anti-tank missile. This attack is directly congruent with Hamas's recent strategy of ratcheting up its war on Israeli civilians.
I have an unconfirmed report, by the way, that the bus when full contained more than 30 more children. You can imagine what the result would have been if the Palestinians had hit it earlier in the route.
You note quite rightly that the Iron Dome counter-rocket defense system had a successful baptism of fire today, successfully intercepting a Grad-style Katyusha. I'll just add two points -- that it's been pressed into service ahead of schedule due to the ramp-up in Hamas aggression, and that it is controlled by young soldiers who have had to get up to speed very quickly. They made history today, and my hat is off to them.
We are hitting back in Gaza right now with airstrikes from planes and helicopters. The BBC is claiming four dead so far, but I don't have confirmation on that yet. Abbas is stepping up to demand that the West "immediately intervene to stop this [Israeli] aggression," while also advising Hamas to stop giving Israel reason to strike Gaza.
In brief: Hamas has clearly made a strategic decision to take its war on Israeli civilians up a notch, a war it has been waging since we withdrew from Gaza six years ago. The escalation might quite plausibly testify to greater confidence resulting from the regime change in Egypt. It's also possible that the escalation testifies quite simply to an increase in available materiel. Iran has put its foot to the floor trying to get arms to Hamas since Mubarak fell, and we are aware only of what we've been able to intercept. I'm speculating here, but Hamas might be expending anti-tank missiles on school buses simply because they now have an ample supply.
If they're getting so aggressive as to risk open war with us, it can only be because somebody's got their back. We all know who that is. What we don't know is what else has already reached Hamas and what is on its way.
UPDATE: It's 11:30 pm here, and Haaretz just posted that Hamas wants a cease-fire. Guess we hit them pretty hard tonight. I'm off to bed.
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Oct '10
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
Hamas wants a cease fire.
Well, alright then.
Feb '11
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
Deliberately targeted a school bus? Toxic, hideous, and outright savage.
Feb '11
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
An average everyday person may not understand why it is important that Israel defend citizens and her land, but everyone knows everything about yellow school buses. For that reason, Hamas will be condemned. I live across the street from a school and the children would be about the same age as the targeted Israeli students. Today, when the school buses arrived I thought about the Hamas attack and I felt sorrow for the Israeli families.
May '10
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
There comes a time to issue warnings to the country to surrender the terrorists,in exchange for a massive reward, provided in the form of food. Warn very clearly, loudly, internationally, that at the time of the deadline, if the guilty people and weapons are not surrendered, the country will be flattened, period. Then do it. No country has to put up with this nonsense.
That's essentially what we did in Afghanistan in October 2001- warned, then dropped bombs and pallets of food at the same time when the bad guys were not surrendered.
Dec '10
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
It is important that most often the latest news on the Middle East appears first and sometimes only right here on Ricochet. It's just one reason I check in every day. Thanks to all of you.
Dec '10
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
I note that at roughly the same time as Hamas fired an anti-tank rocket at an Israeli school bus, a lone gunman entered a school in Brazil and shot 11 students dead before being wounded by a cop and then killing himself. No one will attempt to justify what the madman in Brazil did, and though he is dead and not able to continue killing, there will be a concerted effort in Brazil and worldwide to prevent similar incidents in future. By contrast, there will be many around the world (IHH members and supporters among them) who will excuse and justify Hamas's attempt to mass-murder schoolchildren, and no one outside Israel will call for any serious steps to render Hamas incapable of repeating their crime. It's almost as if Jewish children weren't actual human beings, but instead some sociopolitical construct representing imperialism and colonialism, thus valid targets of violence in a larger political context.
Dec '10
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
I certainly count on Judith to keep us up to date on issues in the region, but as an alternative, I also check with Aussie Dave now and then. Judith has more and better detail, in this case, but I just thought that folks should be aware of that site.
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
And thank you, Jon.
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
Bingo.
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
But we are not like any other country. Unlike any other nation subjected to similar provocations, we would be crucified if we acted as you describe. It could mean the end of Israel.
I wrote once that Israel is written on the globe in pencil. Our existence as a country is so tenuous that we simply do not have the latitude to act in ways any other country would in similar circumstances. It is entirely within the realm of possibility for Israel to be erased once and for all, and we don't need an Iranian bomb to do it. We flatten Gaza and our days are numbered.
It could be argued that we should say the hell with everyone's opinion and just blow these people to kingdom come. You want martyrdom, folks? Come on down! But for us to wipe out Gaza would be to sign our own death certificate. It's not an option.
Nov '10
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
Judith Levy
I wrote once that Israel is written on the globe in pencil. Our existence as a country is so tenuous that we simply do not have the latitude to act in ways any other country would in similar circumstances. It is entirely within the realm of possibility for Israel to be erased once and for all, and we don't need an Iranian bomb to do it. We flatten Gaza and our days are numbered.
Judith,
Would you elucidate a bit more on this subject? I am also curious to know if your concern for the survival of Israel is influenced in any way by the person occupying the White House. (Let's use, for example, G.W. Bush and BHO).
Thanks, as always, for your edifying posts.
Sep '10
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
Judith Levy
It is entirely within the realm of possibility for Israel to be erased once and for all, and we don't need an Iranian bomb to do it. We flatten Gaza and our days are numbered. · Apr 7 at 11:29pm
Maybe, maybe not. It's considered conventional wisdom, but it's really just an assumption that constrains and drives so many actors in the mid-east.
Hamas is trying to work the frog-in-the-kettle routine. Keep turning up the heat until the whole country is cooked and they don't know how it happened. Problem is, this incident is so blatantly savage, that the frog should rightly jump out of the pot and off the stove (an anti-tank round, for pete's sake! That's not even very smart tactics - surprised it didn't just pass straight through the sheet metal without detonating).
No. Right is right, and evil is evil. Self-defense is more than a right, it's a moral imperative.
Dec '10
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
By the way, apparently the Brazilian school shooter converted to Islam a couple of years ago. Any connection between that and his subsequent acts of murder is, I am sure, purely coincidental.
Dec '10
Re: Claire, I'm Okay, Thank You
Steven Drexler
No. Right is right, and evil is evil. Self-defense is more than a right, it's a moral imperative. · Apr 8 at 10:28am
When Arabs slaughter Arabs indiscriminately, the world has historically simply shrugged and said, "It's what Arabs do." No one spoke up about the slaughter in Hama, Syria, in 1982, and Bush's concerns for the Iraqis killed by Saddam were dismissed as naive and ethnocentric. The recent events dating from the abortive Green Revolution in Iran through the Jasmine Revolutions of North Africa are a huge shift in the world's attitude toward the killing of Arabs by their own regimes.
Two things follow. Of course, Jews are held to a far higher standard. Even the most carefully planned and narrowly targeted self-defense operations open up Israel to spurious charges of massacres and crimes against humanity.
But the second thing is more significant: the world may actually wake up to the fact that the suffering in Gaza is more due to the depraved indifference and malevolence of Gaza's Hamas leadership than to the Israeli blockade. And that may mean the world will finally demand that Hamas cease genocidal armed "resistance."