Sadly The Palestinian People Must Be Made To Suffer
Let us start the new year off with a big bang, so to speak, shall we? While some pundits are looking to ease into 2009 after a few weeks off for family and friends, I will jump right in with both feet and set myself up to be called every slur in the book by people without a clue, but who probably think that they know what is best. Yes, after this article I am sure that my email box will be filled with complaints from liberals and pseudo conservatives calling me a hater, a warmonger, a fascist and much worse.
First, let us recap the past couple of weeks. Over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, Israel has once again taken their own security seriously. At least they have taken it seriously for the time being anyway. After continuing to have rockets fired upon their citizens from Palestinian controlled lands in Gaza, during a period of supposed cease fire with the terrorist group Hamas none the less, the Israelis have answered back in a massive fashion. This has of course in turn caused the typical handwringing of terrorist apologist, appeasers, isolationists and general nitwits around the world that occurs whenever someone dares to defend themselves against continued aggression.
Oh, these people have plenty of ready made excuses to justify their disdain for Israel’s action of course. They claim that the response is “disproportionate”; that Hamas is only firing a handful of rockets and injuring a few Israeli civilians so therefore Israel should not answer with a full scale military bombardment and invasion. They claim that the Palestinians have “legitimate” gripes against Israel that tend to blame Israel for every problem Hamas and previous terrorist groups have not been able to solve for the Palestinian people which, it just so happens, is every problem of the Palestinian people. They claim that Israel is to blame for daring to set up walls and checkpoints but fail to note that those walls and check points are up because Hamas terrorists try to send suicide bombers into Israel to blow up bus loads of civilians and cafes full of women and businessmen.
What you rarely, if ever, hear out of the mouths of the terrorist apologists and their assorted associates is a recognition that the Palestinian people are the ones that elected Hamas to lead them. They are the ones that sit around and let their children watch television shows where the cute characters talk about killing Jews and martyring themselves for the glory of Allah. And you would be darn lucky to hear them ever stand up, with the with the same fervor you currently hear coming from their mouths against Israel, against the repeated Hamas rocket attacks deliberately targeting Israeli civilians.
For years, decades really, Israel has shown restraint and made concession after concession to a group of people who have repeatedly attacked them and violated any number of ceasefire resolutions. For years, again decades really, Israel has responded to repeated attacks on their country, a country mind you that is recognized as having a right to exist by everyone except those radical states engaged in attacking Israel, and done so at times forcibly but mostly half-heartedly. Most of the time when they have responded forcibly they have either been pressured by the international community to restrain themselves and then retreat or have restrained themselves after quickly growing weary of defending themselves.
Shockingly these tactics have not cured any of the problems facing Israel! I know! It is such a huge surprise! Even more shockingly, the attacks by the terrorists keep coming. The bombs continue to go off. The rockets continue to rain down. The extreme factions of Islam continue to call for the destruction of Israel and work tirelessly towards those ends.
The way to solve the problem once and for all however is quite simple, although cruel sounding to those that wish to make continued excuses for terrorists and thugs and those that keep electing them into power. The answer is that the Palestinian people must be made to suffer.
While Hamas attacking Israel appears to be the problem to people looking only upon the surface for answers, the true reason for the current situation is beneath that but still very simple to understand. It is the Palestinian people that keep Hamas in power. It is the Palestinian people who, by their own actions and even inaction, keep a terrorist group in control of their lands.
Kill one Hamas leader and another delusional Palestinian jumps up to take his place. Bomb a rocket launching pad manned by terrorists, wiping them out, and more Palestinians come forward to learn the trade and man the next one. It is a self feeding cycle. While it is true that the Palestinian people suffer greatly under Hamas rule they are still not suffering enough to enact a change. They insanely believe that they suffer worse because of Israel’s actions than because of those of their leaders.
Israel has to push the Palestinian people to the brink of realization that supporting Hamas and the terrorists is the worst option they have. Then they push them over that brink. It means making them suffer the consequences of their own actions to a point where they grow so tired of the death and the destruction that even they will be forced to throw up their hands and proclaim, “Enough!”
Do I recommend that Israel treat the civilians as though they are combatants? No. Should Israel indiscriminately target women and children? No. And thankfully they do not do either of those things except when the terrorists place themselves among such targets and leave Israel with no other option.
But there are some things that Israel should do. They should plow through Gaza until the leaders of Hamas are either dead or they surrender unconditionally. They should fight block to block, street to street and house to house killing anyone that has taken up arms in defense of Hamas. They should blow up every rocket launching pad they can find regardless of location. If it is by a school, blow it up. If it is by a Mosque, blow it up. If it is by a hospital, blow it up. Yeah, they may even hit that school, Mosque or hospital too by accident or kill a few civilians in the blast but the reality is Hamas made it a valid military target the second they set up operations nearby.
Oops. Sorry. That is the reality of war. Don’t like it? Then do something about those terrorists you keep electing.
What Israel needs to do is wash, rinse and repeat this strategy over and over and over again, never pulling out of the “Palestinian Territories” until the Palestinians come crawling on their knees and beg for peace. Only when the civilian population of Gaza is so frustrated with the thought that the Israelis are killing a hundred Palestinians for every one or two Israelis that are merely wounded by haphazard rocket fire and realize that they can never win this battle will there be anything resembling a lasting peace in the region. Only when mothers and fathers are so sick of seeing their sons and daughters being cut down without being able to take a single one of the evil Zionists with them will there be a realization that everything they have been attempting is futile.
Few people thought that Imperial Japan would surrender to the Allies in World War II. But a pair of nuclear weapons dropped on their heads made them come to a quick realization that victory would not be theirs. Only then did warriors who swore to never be taken alive quickly change their tune. When they realized that they would never be afforded the option of victory or an “honorable” death and that their only option was indeed death is when the little light bulb in their noggins went off.
Funny how the certainty of death has a sobering effect is it not?
J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts http://www.cafepress.com/rightthings. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at http://www.libertyreborn.com
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