The Real Crisis in Gaza -- and It Isn't Israel

http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/the-real-crisis-in-gaza-and-it-isnt-israel/

Having served another round as a target range for Hamas, Israel finally attacks the rocket-firing terrorists in Gaza. Does the democratic world say "Thank You" to Israel for taking on the overlords of this nest of terror and repression? Not a chance.
. Instead, here comes the usual Western group wallow in Palestinian terrorist propaganda.
We all know the script: Palestinian terrorists attack Israel, again and again and again — as in, Hamas firing some 3,000 mortars and rockets from Gaza into Israel over the past year, some 200 of these since the expiration last week of a six-month "ceasefire." Finally, Israel strikes back, targeting the terrorists.

And the cogs of the middle-eastern cuckoo clock grind into action. Arab states issue denunciations of Israel. Diplomats lament the imperiling of the "peace process." The despot-heavy UN takes time out from its day-to-day trashing of Israel to issue calls for "all parties" to end the violence. The U.S. officially backs Israel, but simultaneously undercuts Israel by issuing calls to rush humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, and then joins the gang of appeaseniks pressuring Israel into another "ceasefire" –which gives the terrorists a chance to regroup and attack again. From the media, out roll the articles and broadcasts lambasting Israel for use of "disproportionate force"; out come the photos and the fauxtography; and the further vilification of Israel proceeds under headlines such as this gem from the Washington Post: "Israeli Airstrikes on Gaza Strip Imperil Obama's Peace Chances."

What a heap of hooey. What's actually imperiling Obama's "peace chances" in this sorry landscape is the presence of a terrorist haven operating in broad daylight right next door to Israel, in the form of the Hamas-run Gaza strip. And the continuing exaltation of terrorism by the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank. And another terrorist haven in the form of Hezbollah-infested Lebanon to the north. And yet more terrorist havens right nearby in the form of Syria and Iran, which harbor and help both Hamas and Hezbollah. And terrorist funders such as – according to the U.S. State Department – "private benefactors in Saudi Arabia and other Arab states" ("benefactors" being a strange choice of word, though unfortunately a good indicator of the State Department mindset).

In this configuration, it's not the Gaza Strip that is the "besieged enclave" (as press reports like to describe it). It's Israel — a democratic state beset by terrorists, terrorist havens, terrorist supporters and terrorist funders.
These terrorist havens threaten not only Israel, but Europe and America. They threaten any state in which democratic freedoms are inimical to the kind of political thuggery that for decades has beggared and poisoned the Palestinians themselves (who just last year took time out from killing Israelis to make headlines for a while by mudering each other in a manner too public for even the press to ignore).

Israel is not the cause of this terrorism; but it does sit on the frontlines. As Sept. 11 should have made clear, in today's globalized world these things don't stay local. And as year after year of "peace process" should have taught the world by now, there are some killers — and the leaders of Hamas richly fit the bill — who are not going to be "talked" into peace. They pocket any gains from the "process," and attack again.

One might well wonder: If Hamas or its terrorist brethren were to set up enclaves next to Paris, Vienna, Berlin, London, New York and Washington, and fire 3,000 rockets and mortars at such democratic neighbors — what, exactly, would the inhabitants of Paris, Vienna, Berlin, London, New York and Washington judge to be the appropriate response?