PART I

I’m prefacing my comment by saying Sharon’s statement is explosive, dangerous, and practically stupid if he insinuating that the IDF bomb Gaza to the extent it kills over a million people. That being said, I have to pose the question, what is the solution to this problem, military or otherwise, given the nature of Hamas and the fact that there are iranian munitions flowing into Gaza?

We’ve seen these flare-ups every couple years now, some intermediary brokers a cease-fire at some point and the cycle repeats itself. Let’s all keep in mind that when Israel withdrew from Gaza, it left the PLO with all those green houses and agricultural tools to start building an economy. Hamas looted everything then when the Gazans held an election, Hamas won. Has anyone noticed that there haven’t been any elections in Gaza for quite some time and likely never will be. From a legal-esque perspective, this means Hamas is the democratically elected government of the Gaza strip and its chosen to endanger its entire civilian population by embedding itself within its civilian areas, use hospitals and holy sites to store weapons, carry out extra-judicial killings of its own people and launch attacks and pretty much do any and everything, that if this were two European countries, we would likely have WWIII. Many friends of mine who have and currently live in Israel have expressed frustration that the cycle continues and are fed up with an autonomous “state” in Gaza, run by religious thugs who shoot missiles at them on a frequent basis. How do Hamas’ rocket attacks never seem to raise the ire of the world? (middle east aside). Is this just because they aren’t as technologically and militarily advanced as the Israelis? Does the world seem to have a need for some sort of arms parity between the two sides before it decrees that any Israeli military response is “proportional” or “appropriate” to the Qassam attacks? Will the rocket attacks bring Israel down? No. But would any other country, large or small, allow another country to carry out similar conduct?

So we can all agree that Sharon’s statements are pig headed, but if Hamas won’t cede power to anyone, and if the Gazans who don’t like Hamas have no ability to mount any kind of internal challenge to step up, what choices do the Israelis have? The UN does not support Israel nor does it have the spine to send UN troops into Gaza. Dresden-like bombing would kill massive amounts of civilians and would be condemned internationally. Targeted bombings only seem to have temporary effect in that they lead to cease fires that meltdown later on. If ground troops are sent in, it winds up being a quagmire and the IDF gets blamed if civilians are killed…..