[Hamas Gunman - AP Photo by Hatem Moussa]Guest post by Bob Poris.
I have no way of knowing how the Israeli attacks against the Gaza terrorists will end, but it didn’t have to come to this.
Israel voluntarily withdrew from Gaza in 2005 as part of a "land for peace" deal that had been pushed upon it for decades. It left prosperous businesses intact for the Gazans to use to shore up its economy.
That's not what happened!
Instead of instituting programs and policies which would benefit the citizens of Gaza, Hamas turned Gaza into a front line military base in a long-term Islamist confrontation with Israel, backed by Iran. It has rejected any attempts to negotiate a two-state solution with Israel.
Hamas began a daily barrage of rockets into Israeli towns over a year ago! Over four thousand rockets have been fired into Israel since 2005! These rockets have narrowly missed blowing up Israeli children in kindergartens and giant fuel storage facilities in built-up areas of Southern Israel.
The various cease fires have been used by Hamas to smuggle more sophisticated rockets and weapons into Israel and to build up its forces to wage terror against Israel.
Israel’s attacks are not the result of the end of the last cease fire. They are a response to eighteen months of rockets being launched against Israeli cities and civilians by the elected governing body of Gaza and seven years of attacks from Gaza, and the ideology which fuels them.
What nation on earth would have waited so long for talks to stop a war waged against it? Why should Israel be asked to not react to the indiscriminate killing of its citizens over so many years?
Why indeed?
