re: #117 Charles Johnson

Israel has to do something to try to stop this barrage of rockets, yes. But “beat downs” aren’t going to change anything. Everything will be right back to the status quo very shortly.

Worst case scenario is we’ll get a repeat of Cast Lead. Israel will trade volleys with Hamas for a few weeks, Israel will kill a bunch of Hamas operatives and some civilians. Hamas will claim Israel engaged in genocide; the media will inevitably report the claims as true, and weeks later the reality will be that 80%+ of those killed were Hamas operatives. Greenwald will call for war crimes against Israel, even though every country has a right to defend itself from terrorism and armed attacks (Russia wouldn’t stop at a Cast Lead type operation, but go for the Hama rules flatten the territory and claim they were invited in by rebel forces to liberate them from foreign operatives).

Cast Lead bought a couple years of quiet (mostly while Hamas rebuilt its inventory of rockets/missiles).

Now, Hamas has longer range rockets and missiles, that while they aren’t guided, are posing a threat to the heart of Israel’s population centers. That’s going to require the Israeli government to respond.

But how do you respond against an entrenched enemy that cowers and hides behind civilians with the intention of maximizing civilian casualties. That’s the dilemma that Israel faces once again.