So, Hamas has decided that a few months' respite from resistance was too great a betrayal of the cause, and has decided to end its cease-fire with Israel. Fusillades of rockets are falling once again on southern Israel. What should Israel do?
For starters, Egypt, which has been almost completely ineffective as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, should be ignored. Egypt's priority throughout the crisis has been to insulate itself from the chaos emanating from Gaza. The Mubarak regime is weak and its competence limited; it asks Hamas to stop firing rockets, but demands that Israel not respond to such provocations. Egypt prefers quiet but will settle for low-level conflict -- anything to keep the Gaza cauldron from spilling into its territory or inciting its own radicals.
Israel is in a different kind of predicament. Invading Gaza and sending the Hamas leadership to the grave, along with many of the group's fighters, is perfectly warranted -- but such a strategy contains serious downside risks. The Fatah party is too weak, incompetent, and estranged from Gaza to replace a toppled Hamas regime. This effectively leaves Israel without an exit strategy.
And should Israel invade, the "international community" would descend into hysterics almost as fast as Khaled Mashaal can denounce the Zionist devils. A major military operation would be met with shrill media condemnations and allegations of civilian massacres not seen since the Hezbollah war in 2006, and right now the Olmert government is not strong or popular enough to weather such a storm. The Palestinians learned a valuable lesson in 2002 when for a few weeks they convinced the world that Israel had perpetrated the mass-murder of civilians in Jenin: next time, produce some bodies. Hamas will make sure that any Israeli incursion is accompanied by as many dead civilians (preferably children) as possible. Already, Hamas has been documented using kids to retrieve rocket launchers off the battlefield, hoping that they will be cut down by Israeli return fire. Nobody wants to instigate what will undoubtedly be a series of international crises two months before a national election.
Which brings up the electoral dynamic. The outgoing Olmert government is focused on the easy pursuit of largely meaningless peace negotiations with Syria. The minister of defense, Ehud Barak, is attempting (however implausibly) to become Prime Minister, and does not want his electoral fortunes to be afflicted by a military operation that will be a going concern on election day. And none of the contenders -- Barak, Livni, and Bibi -- wish to make promises about Gaza that will be attacked by their rivals, and which they might have to either keep or abandon later.
There is a policy that Israel should pursue in the interim, however: targeted killings of Hamas leaders. For one, the leadership deserves to die far more than do the brainwashed teenaged minions sent into battle on their behalf. Targeted killings keep the IDF off the battlefield in Gaza, reducing the likelihood fabricated massacre claims. And most importantly, targeted killings strike Hamas at their most vulnerable point: the leadership wishes to protect its rule over the mini-Iran that it has established on the Mediterranean. The IDF could establish meaningful short-term deterrence by killing as many Hamas leaders and commanders as possible, and make the group fear for its existence. It wouldn't be such a bad idea to kill Khaled Mashaal in Damascus as well. Targeted killings are both the most morally defensible way to wage war, and among a host of bad options, will probably be the most successful.
Really great post and well researched -- what are your sources re: Egyptian complicity and so on? It all sounds good to me, but I'd like to get an idea of where you're getting your information from.
As for targeted killings -- I'm all about taking out Hamas, but wouldn't that trigger suicide bombings again in Jerusalem, etc? Or is Israel secure enough to hit Hamas leaders in Gaza and have the security fence keep our Jewish brothers and sisters safe?
So do you consider all brown people terrorists, or is it just the Muslims?
Either way, you better do something quick; Israel is in a very vulnerable situation having only various nuclear weapons and a colossal military machine to use to defend herself from a handful of militants and all the impoverished innocent people she's walled off...... And when is Israel going to finally exterminate those Palestinian preteens who go so far as INTENTIONALLY throwing ROCKS (!) at Israeli tanks? Everyone knows preteens with rocks (assuming they're brown preteens, of course) collectively comprise the second largest form of violent terrorism. Why isn't Israel being more aggressive?!
Rockthemandolin -- thank you for perfectly encapsulating the race-based ignorance of much of the political Left when it comes to Israel. You think you're defending "brown" people, but really your (most-likely) guilty white consience from having grown up (most likely) in a coddled upper-middle class all white suburb prevents you from a clear analysis of events in the Middle East -- and casts you as a racist. Using terms of "brown" for people in the Middle East is ridiculous and unhelpful, considering that race itself is a racist concept from the 18th century colonization of the non-European world. There are Arabs of all different colors and backgrounds, same for Jews. Either way, I'm thankful that your limited world-view does for the Left what centrists like myself have been pointing out for years -- that self-righteous privileged elites in America have zero insight into what's happening abroad, and should spend their precious time with therapists instead of opining about geo-politics.
Firstly, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with such concepts as irony and satire and their various applications. Perhaps then you will see that I'm satirizing the mentality of a large portion of America that believes terrorism and Muslims are one in the same. And all this in spite of Israel's violent belligerence (along with the fact that Israel's military capability makes Hamas look, quite frankly, like a little kid with a slingshot) that has led to the deaths of countless innocent Palestinians.
And yes, me with my race-based ignorance and my limited perspective - unable to see the value of a bellicose nationalist state that breaks international law and violates human rights in the name of the Jewish people. Shame.
"Perhaps then you will see that I'm satirizing the mentality of a large
portion of America that believes terrorism and Muslims are one in the
same."
Why are you writing this garbage as a reply to my post? What in the world does an analysis of Gaza have to do with the alleged inability of "a large portion" of Americans to distinguish between Muslims and terrorists? As poster #3 said, it might be time to spend some time on the couch -- both because of your paranoid slander of Americans and because your interpretation of my writing is hallucinatory.
I just read your self-congratulatory Jewcy profile. I'm so impressed. Another 20-year-old ignoramus who's read a couple of Chomsky essays and thinks she understands the world. Bravo. Keep telling yourself what an original thinker you are. Spend the summer on a collectivist organic farm in Guatemala doing an irrigation project. That's the ticket.
Good idea. Maybe all people of conscience will do that and leave you and the rest of the pseudo-enlightened egocentric warmongers to determine the fate of the world.
"another twenty year old ignoramus who's read a couple of Chomsky essays and thinks she understands the world" hah, it's amazing how you've summed up my entire character based upon a book that I read and my age. Excellent work.
Hi Zachary -- the stuff on Egypt is fairly well-known, and I've written about it over the past year and a half over at my normal digs on Commentary's blog.
The short version goes something like this: Hamas places Egypt in a difficult position. Hamas represents the continued expansion of Iranian power in the Levant, which is a threat (and humiliation) to Sunni regimes like Egypt's. Hamas also threatens Egypt's internal stability, because Hamas ideologically is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose origins are in Egypt and which is still influential in Egypt.
At the same time, Mubarak can't come down too hard on Hamas, because Hamas is fighting Israel, and one of the fundamental rules of Arab politics is that you have to praise, or at least not condemn, anyone taking up arms against the bloodthirsty Zionist usurpers. Moreover, Palestinians who are "resisting" Israel are at the top of the list of political untouchables, because the continuation of Palestinian suffering and victimhood at the hands of the Jews helps Arab autocracies suppress their own people (this is a story for another time, though). So Egypt publicly criticizes Israel for even considering a military operation, but privately no doubt wishes for one. The last thing the Egyptian government wants to see is the problems Hamas is creating spill over into Egypt. They much prefer this fight to remain between Israel and Hamas.
Noah -- thanks for the break down, I'm decently versed in these dynamics and it's good to see them represented here again. It's that old, play-up-the-plight-of-the-poor-Palestinians-while-we-keep-our-feet-on-the-neck-of-our-locals parlour trick that Arabs call governance. I could add some more hypehns about competing with wild-eyed Shias, but it's too much of a pain to keep typing that way.
I guess what my question was about your sources. I'm always on the hunt for good information that isn't totally explained away into nothingness like in the NY Times' "coverage" of Islam that is either ignorant, or just too political stupid to be taken seriously.
Some of the JPost's columnists, such as Jonathan Spyer, are excellent, as are a couple of people from Yediot and Haaretz. NOW Lebanon is good, as is Michael Totten, Tony Badran, etc.
you rock! thanks for the links. And, for the record, I've been a subscriber of Commentary for many years. I love the foreign policy coverage. The cranky Republican economics are clearly ridiculous, but their analysis of the Left and our responses to the complexities in the Middle East are top notch.
There, Ms RocksInTheHead, you can bask in the warmth of Castro's murderous suppression of individual freedoms, his languorous forced labor plantations, and his enlightening free press.
I'll bet I can take up a collection here and in less than 24hrs you can be prostrate before Chomsky's homoerotic dream!
(I wish to apologize to all for my attack on the utterances of this naive partial-birth abortion of the American socialist education system. What can I say? I have a libertairian addiction and there is no treatment;-)
Y'all dont be so harsh on rockthemandolin. Even what she got to say dont make sense, its good to think about those ideas when you are young. Its a good age to look at the things that used to drive the Left before they ran out of ideas.After all, its much easier to excuse the behaivior of a young "radical" than a grown up one, No?
Before entering into a discussion of the merits, or lack thereof, of an incursion into Gaza, it is necessary to discuss a few preliminary matters.
There are many perspectives from which one may view the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They may be sophisticated and nuanced, or simple (or even simplistic). But the short and long of it is that that everyone must choose sides. There are three parties to this conflict: the State of Israel; Fatah; and Hamas. Israelis have, more or less by virtue of the fact that they reside in that State, support Israel--though such is not the case in respect of a few extremist factions.
The Palestinians have chosen Fatah and Hamas respectively. The State of Israel is represented by Israeli society: Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, and the Druze minority.
The first step in this discussion is to decide which side one prefers: Hamas, Fatah or Israel. It is not strictly necessary to go into an in-depth discussion of Hamas, Fatah, or Israel here. Such has been done elsewhere. I think it would suffice to state their overall goals.
Hamas is concerned with the imposition of an Islamist State upon Palestinian society. It wants to establish that state over the entirety of the lands currently known as "Israel" and the "Palestinian Territories". It views Jew as an obstacle to its ends. Ethnic cleansing and genocide are both excellent means of avoiding that obstacle. Both are explicitly supported by Hamas. These lads garnered about 45% of the vote (sufficient for minority rule with a coalition, I believe), in the last Palestinian election.
Fatah is concerned with the imposition of its rule over Palestinian society and the acquisition of power. Fatah's grip on power is secured by attacking Israelis (to bolster its popularity), formenting anti-Israeli propaganda (to bolster hatred of the opposition), and financial handouts to keep the engine greased and avoid any ambitious young men taking a tour through Ramallah and hanging anyone in a tie-and-suit on the way, not to mention anyone with a television they might like or particularly attractive female family members. Needless to say that death and killing are nothing to Fatah or its 'loyal' members.These jokers garnered 40% of the vote in the last Palestinian elections, incidentally.
(I will summarise Israel's position tomorrow and add it here later.)
The second step in this discussion is to decide on what terms a cessation of violence is preferable in the short-term and in the long-term.
Why on Earth must everyone choose sides? And you're forgetting a fourth side: America, which has its own interests in the region. Plus all the other regional powers, the international community...I'm going to classify your comment under "simplistic" as a means of analyzing the situation.
Here we go again, with the mainstream media blathering on about "cycle of violence," equating Israeli defense with Palestinian aggression/terror. Here's the (endless) cycle I see: Palis and other Arab/Islamic terrorists commit yet another outrage against Jews/Israelis. The Greek chorus of Europeans and Americans urge "restraint". Israel agrees grudgingly (like Rabin's handshake with Arafat) once again to turn the other cheek and "end the cycle of violence." Once again the Arab/Muslim/Palestinian terrorists use Israeli restraint to arm for, plan and carry out further terror. Israel, refusing to play the role of plucky victim assigned them by Western effetes, responds in force. Once again, rockthemandolin and her ilk tag Israel as the aggressors.
Bravo, Noah, for cutting through the bullshit and putting left-wing moonbats in their place. I'm writing this as Israel is doing what it has to do, trying once again to clean out the pest hole called Gaza of the vermin called Hamas. The question is, since Hamas is a terrorist organization, and since the Gazans embrace them, as the Germans embraced the Nazis, is Gaza not a de facto terrorist state? (It's an open secret that West Bank Palestinians, like the Egyptians, consider Gazans a pain in the ass. Thus, West Bank and Gazan Palis should be considered separately.)
Israel is a bulwark, an outpost, of civilization in the atavistic miasma of violence and corruptiion which is the Arab/Muslim world. Israel's enemies are the enemies of civilization and should be given no quarter.
That said, how successful can the "targeted killlng" you suggest be? Unless you're talking about assassinations, targeted killings rarely hit only the target. There will be deaths which academic and media apologists for terrorists will seize upon to "prove" Israeli aggression, dishonestly omitting, as usual, the Palestinian terrrorist predicate. And for the targeted death of every Hamas "martyr," there will always be another to take his place.
As gruesome and subject to censure as it may be in the short term, a broad and ruthless campaign against Hamas may benefit Israel more in the long term. I'm speaking of total war. Does Israel have the resources? If not, I'm afraid, given that the Arab war against Israel is a war of attrition, targeted killing or "measured response," i.e. war on the cheap, will continue to be a futile and enervating solution.
"Why on Earth must everyone choose sides? And you're forgetting a fourth side: America, which has its own interests in the region. Plus all the other regional powers, the international community...I'm going to classify your comment under "simplistic" as a means of analyzing the situation."
Who do we (the Americans, for your convenience) want to rule this plot of land? For the moment, contenders include Israel, Fatah and Hamas. That's not to suggest that these will be the only contenders in the future. But thus far no other nation or political grouping lays direct claim to the land comprising Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Thus American political decision-making is predicated on the notion that it would prefer Israel to continue to exist.
The choice is made easier for most countries because (a) Islamists (i) forment anti-American propaganda and (ii) support anti-American/Western interests, such as by giving money and aid to groups attacking the United States/Western targets; (b) Fatah is a collection of corrupt incompetents that engage in both (i) and (ii) mentioned above and (c) Israel is neither (a) nor (b).
What flows from that, depends on further analysis. What is necessary is to determine how violence may cease on a long term basis, with Israel continuing to exist in a manner acceptable to American interests. From there, in turn, one comes to a consideration of what exactly is to be done regarding Hamas, which presently rules Gaza.
Israel should ignore Egypt? That seems pretty hamfisted to me. You're right to point out how weak Mubarak is...but that should be a problem for Israel, not an exploitable weakness. Egyptians as a people are extremely anti-Israel, and hate that their government is cooperating with Israel to crush Hamas. Ignoring Mubarak will only add to the problem.
I think you can question the wisdom of Israel's tangling itself in the new Muslim sectarian war, but the truth is that if Israel wants to maintain any nonviolent leverage against Iran, it's critical to play ball with Sunni regimes like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. That means that, even in moments of crisis like this, suggesting that Israel summarily 'ignore' Egypt is pretty off.
For starters, Egypt, which has been almost completely ineffective as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, should be ignored. Egypt's priority throughout the crisis has been to insulate itself from the chaos emanating from Gaza. The Mubarak regime is weak and its competence limited; it asks Hamas to stop firing rockets, but demands that Israel not respond to such provocations. Egypt prefers quiet but will settle for low-level conflict -- anything to keep the Gaza cauldron from spilling into its territory or inciting its own radicals.
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Zachary Thacher
Really great post and well researched -- what are your sources re: Egyptian complicity and so on? It all sounds good to me, but I'd like to get an idea of where you're getting your information from.
As for targeted killings -- I'm all about taking out Hamas, but wouldn't that trigger suicide bombings again in Jerusalem, etc? Or is Israel secure enough to hit Hamas leaders in Gaza and have the security fence keep our Jewish brothers and sisters safe?
cuyfghjg
So do you consider all brown people terrorists, or is it just the Muslims?
Either way, you better do something quick; Israel is in a very vulnerable situation having only various nuclear weapons and a colossal military machine to use to defend herself from a handful of militants and all the impoverished innocent people she's walled off...... And when is Israel going to finally exterminate those Palestinian preteens who go so far as INTENTIONALLY throwing ROCKS (!) at Israeli tanks? Everyone knows preteens with rocks (assuming they're brown preteens, of course) collectively comprise the second largest form of violent terrorism. Why isn't Israel being more aggressive?!
You've got the conscience of a trash bag.
Zachary Thacher
cuyfghjg
Firstly, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with such concepts as irony and satire and their various applications. Perhaps then you will see that I'm satirizing the mentality of a large portion of America that believes terrorism and Muslims are one in the same. And all this in spite of Israel's violent belligerence (along with the fact that Israel's military capability makes Hamas look, quite frankly, like a little kid with a slingshot) that has led to the deaths of countless innocent Palestinians.
And yes, me with my race-based ignorance and my limited perspective - unable to see the value of a bellicose nationalist state that breaks international law and violates human rights in the name of the Jewish people. Shame.
Noah Pollak
"Perhaps then you will see that I'm satirizing the mentality of a large portion of America that believes terrorism and Muslims are one in the same."
Why are you writing this garbage as a reply to my post? What in the world does an analysis of Gaza have to do with the alleged inability of "a large portion" of Americans to distinguish between Muslims and terrorists? As poster #3 said, it might be time to spend some time on the couch -- both because of your paranoid slander of Americans and because your interpretation of my writing is hallucinatory.
Noah Pollak
cuyfghjg
Good idea. Maybe all people of conscience will do that and leave you and the rest of the pseudo-enlightened egocentric warmongers to determine the fate of the world.
"another twenty year old ignoramus who's read a couple of Chomsky essays and thinks she understands the world" hah, it's amazing how you've summed up my entire character based upon a book that I read and my age. Excellent work.
Zachary Thacher
Noah,
I'd love to learn more about your sources since you seem to know your stuff. Please share!
Noah Pollak
Hi Zachary -- the stuff on Egypt is fairly well-known, and I've written about it over the past year and a half over at my normal digs on Commentary's blog.
The short version goes something like this: Hamas places Egypt in a difficult position. Hamas represents the continued expansion of Iranian power in the Levant, which is a threat (and humiliation) to Sunni regimes like Egypt's. Hamas also threatens Egypt's internal stability, because Hamas ideologically is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose origins are in Egypt and which is still influential in Egypt.
At the same time, Mubarak can't come down too hard on Hamas, because Hamas is fighting Israel, and one of the fundamental rules of Arab politics is that you have to praise, or at least not condemn, anyone taking up arms against the bloodthirsty Zionist usurpers. Moreover, Palestinians who are "resisting" Israel are at the top of the list of political untouchables, because the continuation of Palestinian suffering and victimhood at the hands of the Jews helps Arab autocracies suppress their own people (this is a story for another time, though). So Egypt publicly criticizes Israel for even considering a military operation, but privately no doubt wishes for one. The last thing the Egyptian government wants to see is the problems Hamas is creating spill over into Egypt. They much prefer this fight to remain between Israel and Hamas.
Zachary Thacher
Noah -- thanks for the break down, I'm decently versed in these dynamics and it's good to see them represented here again. It's that old, play-up-the-plight-of-the-poor-Palestinians-while-we-keep-our-feet-on-the-neck-of-our-locals parlour trick that Arabs call governance. I could add some more hypehns about competing with wild-eyed Shias, but it's too much of a pain to keep typing that way.
I guess what my question was about your sources. I'm always on the hunt for good information that isn't totally explained away into nothingness like in the NY Times' "coverage" of Islam that is either ignorant, or just too political stupid to be taken seriously.
Noah Pollak
Read the regional blogs, and the MESH blog, which (in my opinion) is the most authoritative source of commentary on the Middle East:
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/
Some of the JPost's columnists, such as Jonathan Spyer, are excellent, as are a couple of people from Yediot and Haaretz. NOW Lebanon is good, as is Michael Totten, Tony Badran, etc.
Zachary Thacher
you rock! thanks for the links. And, for the record, I've been a subscriber of Commentary for many years. I love the foreign policy coverage. The cranky Republican economics are clearly ridiculous, but their analysis of the Left and our responses to the complexities in the Middle East are top notch.
Tommy Barrios
I say turn Tzipi Livini lose on the Hamas thugs and... oops where did they go!
To Hamas I say
Have a Mossad day!
Shalom
TIC
Tommy Barrios
There, Ms RocksInTheHead, you can bask in the warmth of Castro's murderous suppression of individual freedoms, his languorous forced labor plantations, and his enlightening free press.
I'll bet I can take up a collection here and in less than 24hrs you can be prostrate before Chomsky's homoerotic dream!
(I wish to apologize to all for my attack on the utterances of this naive partial-birth abortion of the American socialist education system. What can I say? I have a libertairian addiction and there is no treatment;-)
smokesteam
Good article and followup explanations thank you.
Y'all dont be so harsh on rockthemandolin. Even what she got to say dont make sense, its good to think about those ideas when you are young. Its a good age to look at the things that used to drive the Left before they ran out of ideas.After all, its much easier to excuse the behaivior of a young "radical" than a grown up one, No?
Zeevico
Rockthemandolin:
Before entering into a discussion of the merits, or lack thereof, of an incursion into Gaza, it is necessary to discuss a few preliminary matters.
There are many perspectives from which one may view the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They may be sophisticated and nuanced, or simple (or even simplistic). But the short and long of it is that that everyone must choose sides. There are three parties to this conflict: the State of Israel; Fatah; and Hamas. Israelis have, more or less by virtue of the fact that they reside in that State, support Israel--though such is not the case in respect of a few extremist factions.
The Palestinians have chosen Fatah and Hamas respectively. The State of Israel is represented by Israeli society: Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, and the Druze minority.
The first step in this discussion is to decide which side one prefers: Hamas, Fatah or Israel. It is not strictly necessary to go into an in-depth discussion of Hamas, Fatah, or Israel here. Such has been done elsewhere. I think it would suffice to state their overall goals.
Hamas is concerned with the imposition of an Islamist State upon Palestinian society. It wants to establish that state over the entirety of the lands currently known as "Israel" and the "Palestinian Territories". It views Jew as an obstacle to its ends. Ethnic cleansing and genocide are both excellent means of avoiding that obstacle. Both are explicitly supported by Hamas. These lads garnered about 45% of the vote (sufficient for minority rule with a coalition, I believe), in the last Palestinian election.
Fatah is concerned with the imposition of its rule over Palestinian society and the acquisition of power. Fatah's grip on power is secured by attacking Israelis (to bolster its popularity), formenting anti-Israeli propaganda (to bolster hatred of the opposition), and financial handouts to keep the engine greased and avoid any ambitious young men taking a tour through Ramallah and hanging anyone in a tie-and-suit on the way, not to mention anyone with a television they might like or particularly attractive female family members. Needless to say that death and killing are nothing to Fatah or its 'loyal' members.These jokers garnered 40% of the vote in the last Palestinian elections, incidentally.
(I will summarise Israel's position tomorrow and add it here later.)
The second step in this discussion is to decide on what terms a cessation of violence is preferable in the short-term and in the long-term.
jer
Why on Earth must everyone choose sides? And you're forgetting a fourth side: America, which has its own interests in the region. Plus all the other regional powers, the international community...I'm going to classify your comment under "simplistic" as a means of analyzing the situation.
lbjack
Here we go again, with the mainstream media blathering on about "cycle of violence," equating Israeli defense with Palestinian aggression/terror. Here's the (endless) cycle I see: Palis and other Arab/Islamic terrorists commit yet another outrage against Jews/Israelis. The Greek chorus of Europeans and Americans urge "restraint". Israel agrees grudgingly (like Rabin's handshake with Arafat) once again to turn the other cheek and "end the cycle of violence." Once again the Arab/Muslim/Palestinian terrorists use Israeli restraint to arm for, plan and carry out further terror. Israel, refusing to play the role of plucky victim assigned them by Western effetes, responds in force. Once again, rockthemandolin and her ilk tag Israel as the aggressors.
Bravo, Noah, for cutting through the bullshit and putting left-wing moonbats in their place. I'm writing this as Israel is doing what it has to do, trying once again to clean out the pest hole called Gaza of the vermin called Hamas. The question is, since Hamas is a terrorist organization, and since the Gazans embrace them, as the Germans embraced the Nazis, is Gaza not a de facto terrorist state? (It's an open secret that West Bank Palestinians, like the Egyptians, consider Gazans a pain in the ass. Thus, West Bank and Gazan Palis should be considered separately.)
Israel is a bulwark, an outpost, of civilization in the atavistic miasma of violence and corruptiion which is the Arab/Muslim world. Israel's enemies are the enemies of civilization and should be given no quarter.
That said, how successful can the "targeted killlng" you suggest be? Unless you're talking about assassinations, targeted killings rarely hit only the target. There will be deaths which academic and media apologists for terrorists will seize upon to "prove" Israeli aggression, dishonestly omitting, as usual, the Palestinian terrrorist predicate. And for the targeted death of every Hamas "martyr," there will always be another to take his place.
As gruesome and subject to censure as it may be in the short term, a broad and ruthless campaign against Hamas may benefit Israel more in the long term. I'm speaking of total war. Does Israel have the resources? If not, I'm afraid, given that the Arab war against Israel is a war of attrition, targeted killing or "measured response," i.e. war on the cheap, will continue to be a futile and enervating solution.
Zeevico
"Why on Earth must everyone choose sides? And you're forgetting a fourth side: America, which has its own interests in the region. Plus all the other regional powers, the international community...I'm going to classify your comment under "simplistic" as a means of analyzing the situation."
Who do we (the Americans, for your convenience) want to rule this plot of land? For the moment, contenders include Israel, Fatah and Hamas. That's not to suggest that these will be the only contenders in the future. But thus far no other nation or political grouping lays direct claim to the land comprising Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Thus American political decision-making is predicated on the notion that it would prefer Israel to continue to exist.
The choice is made easier for most countries because (a) Islamists (i) forment anti-American propaganda and (ii) support anti-American/Western interests, such as by giving money and aid to groups attacking the United States/Western targets; (b) Fatah is a collection of corrupt incompetents that engage in both (i) and (ii) mentioned above and (c) Israel is neither (a) nor (b).
What flows from that, depends on further analysis. What is necessary is to determine how violence may cease on a long term basis, with Israel continuing to exist in a manner acceptable to American interests. From there, in turn, one comes to a consideration of what exactly is to be done regarding Hamas, which presently rules Gaza.
Max Socol
Israel should ignore Egypt? That seems pretty hamfisted to me. You're right to point out how weak Mubarak is...but that should be a problem for Israel, not an exploitable weakness. Egyptians as a people are extremely anti-Israel, and hate that their government is cooperating with Israel to crush Hamas. Ignoring Mubarak will only add to the problem.
I think you can question the wisdom of Israel's tangling itself in the new Muslim sectarian war, but the truth is that if Israel wants to maintain any nonviolent leverage against Iran, it's critical to play ball with Sunni regimes like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. That means that, even in moments of crisis like this, suggesting that Israel summarily 'ignore' Egypt is pretty off.