(no subject)

[meanfreepath]

Why does Israel have to be put on the defensive internationally after its commandos use limited force in response to being attacked with potentially deadly weapons? Would anyone be complaining if the men and women of the US Navy were to use lethal force to defend themselves in the course of interdicting Somali pirates?

Comments

[meanfreepath.livejournal.com]

Even if only humanitarian supplies are being carried, Israel has every right, and even the responsibility, to maintain the blockade and isolate Hamas. I think an apt metaphor here is Sherman's march to the sea, which broke the back of the Confederacy, or the American submarine blockade of Japan which so drastically reduced the amount of shipping going into Japan that the Japanese war machine might well have been starved into submission in a few more months, even without the atomic bombings.

Until Hamas is ready to renounce violence and recognize Israel, such that the people of Israel can live without the threat of violence hanging over them, maintain the blockade. And don't forget that Israel does allow some humanitarian aid in by land. Frankly, few militaries in the history of warfare have ever been as humane as the IDF.

[arctangent.livejournal.com]

If Hamas could be "starved into submission" it would have already happened by now. They're basically as starved as starving people can possibly get.

If the goal is to make them no more a credible military threat, that ship sailed LONG, LONG AGO -- the idea that they're anything even close to a credible military threat is laughable.

If the goal is "surrender" or to "crush" Hamas by making the movement it represents disappear by causing everyone in Palestine to suddenly stop hating and resenting Israel and therefore no longer throw rocks at IDF vehicles or cobble together pathetic fireworks to launch in the vague direction of the border, then that just doesn't happen. The idea that you could EVER somehow neuter the hatred Palestinians feel toward Israel by starving them more, beating them into further submission, making them suffer worse is contrary to even the most rudimentary understanding of human nature.

It's nonsense. Unless your intention is to literally starve every Palestinian to death, this is no solution at all -- it is a solution guaranteed to continue the status quo by continuing to foster impotent, desperate rage on the part of all Palestinians and continuing to lead to pathetic outbreaks of token violence that will justify still-further sanctions.

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

OK, you can argue this with Jerome if you want, but Israel is still going to deliver the aid materials from the flotilla to Gaza.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

The goal is in part to show how bad things are in Hamas-led Gaza, as opposed to Fatah-led West Bank which has considerably more livable conditions. And to demonstrate that Hamas will direct violence at anyone, indiscriminately--not just Israelis, but Palestinians, too.

The problem is, it's already been demonstrated. Everyone gets the point. Hamas is only about violence. But the regular people in Gaza can't move to the West Bank--they're stuck stuck in Gaza. And Hamas is in power, and the only other political party is stuck in the West Bank, so there isn't even anyone to challenge Hamas's power.

My dad has a cousin who's a colonel in the IDF, and a professor of Israeli military history and strategy, and he says that if Hamas, or Fatah, were willing to govern--make laws and enforce them consistently, collect taxes, build roads and schools and hospitals--Israel would have given them independence already, either through their own volition or by the demands of the rest of the world.