The goal of Israel's
war against Hamas -- which has systematically and deliberately launched
missiles at civilians -- must not culminate in yet another cease-fire,
but rather the devastation of the entire infrastructure of Hamas'
capability -- logistically, operationally, financially, educationally
and politically.
The goal of Israel's
war against Hamas, which has grown in power following each round of
violence and subsequent cease-fire, must not be to end to the current
cycle of violence, but to end the cyclical pattern of violence by
destroying Hamas' terrorist capabilities.
Israel's war against
Hamas directly impacts Israel's confrontation with Iran, regional
Islamic terrorism, Hezbollah and other enemies, and its goal must be to
restore Israel's power of deterrence, which has been severely undermined
by the 21-year-old Oslo-driven policy of engagement and containment
toward the dramatically expanding Palestinian and Hezbollah
infrastructures of hate education, terrorism in general, and missile
capabilities in particular. Israel's deterrence has also been crippled
by putting up with systematic Palestinian non-compliance, while
rewarding Palestinian belligerence and terrorism with territorial,
diplomatic and economic concessions; tolerating the deliberate and
extensive Palestinian destruction of Temple Mount archaeology; and the
massive release of Palestinian arch-terrorists.
Israel's power of
deterrence constitutes the most crucial component of Israel's national
security in the face of the rising tide of Islamic terrorism, the Arab
tsunami and increasingly violent Muslim intolerance towards the
"infidel" Christians and Jews, contending that the Middle East (as well
as Spain, Portugal, Southern France, Sicily and parts of Italy's
mainland) is divinely ordained to Muslims.
Israel's power of
deterrence is doubly crucial in the Middle East, the world's leading
breeding ground of terrorism, where compromise, concession, retreat and
compromise are perceived by the Muslim/Arab street as indecisiveness,
insecurity and weakness, fueling further radicalism, violence, terrorism
and war.
The murder of almost
3,000 Americans on 9/11 was ignited by the frail U.S. response to a
systematic campaign of Islamic terrorism, beginning with the 1983 murder
of 300 U.S. Marines at the U.S. Embassy and Marines Headquarters in
Beirut (while the U.S. brutally opposed Israel's war on the PLO); the
1988 murder of 270 Pan Am Flight 103 passengers (a few months after the
U.S. recognition of the PLO); the 1993 murder of six and injury of over
1,000 Americans in the first attempt to blow up the Twin Towers; the
1995 failed attempt to simultaneously blow up 11 U.S. airliners over the
Pacific; the 1995-1996 murder of 19 U.S. soldiers in Riyadh and Khobar
Towers (while then-President Bill Clinton courted PLO chief Yasser
Arafat); the 1998 murder of 257 people at the U.S. embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania (while Clinton pressured then-Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu); and the October 2000 murder of 17 USS Cole sailors (when
Clinton brokered unprecedented Israeli concessions to the Palestinians).
Hamas' current
unprecedented firepower -- including underground missile-manufacturing
capabilities -- was facilitated by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
2005 withdrawal from Gaza, which catapulted Hamas to power and
drastically undermined Israel's personal and national security, holding
millions of Israelis hostage under Hamas' terrorism.
The unprecedented boost
to Hezbollah's terrorist infrastructures, including missiles
capabilities, the October 2000 Israeli-Arab violence, and the subsequent
wave of Palestinian terrorism known as the Second Intifada were
triggered by then Prime Minister Ehud Barak's May 2000 reckless flight
from southern Lebanon, exacerbated by the unprecedented concessions he
offered to Arafat at Camp David in July 2000.
The unparalleled scope
of Palestinian terrorism, hate-education and non-compliance has been the
result of a series of groundbreaking Israeli ideological and
territorial concessions since the launching of the 1993 Oslo process.
These concessions transferred most Palestinian terrorists from Sudan,
Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Syria and Lebanon to Judea, Samaria and Gaza,
while transforming Israel's policy from "no Palestinian state" to the
"two-state solution" and from security-driven peace to the delusional
peace-driven security state of mind. The Oslo process also introduced a
restrained unilateral Israeli political/military action, while seeking
political/military coordination with the Palestinian Authority and the
U.S. This paved the road to Hamas' takeover of Gaza, and potential
domination of Judea and Samaria as well.
The well-intentioned
Oslo-driven peace process has been hijacked by Palestinian terrorists,
while Israeli and American policy makers subordinate national security
in general, and specifically the war on terrorism, to self-destructive
oversimplification and wishful thinking. Thus, it has promoted the
gullible notion that "talking minimizes shooting."
An effective war on terrorism
must be offensive and military rather than defensive and diplomatic;
pre-emptive and preventive, not retaliatory; comprehensive,
disproportionate and sustained, not surgical, restrained and limited;
aimed at preventing the gun from reaching the hand, not waiting for a
smoking gun; long-term security-oriented, not short-term
convenience-driven; overriding and facilitating the peace process, not
subordinated by the "peace process"; at any price and not deterred by
the price (no pain, no gain); operating at the breeding ground of
terrorism, not through remote-control; in defiance of global pressure
and condemnation, not subdued by Western policy and public opinion; a
war pursued until total submission by terrorists, not a war of
attrition. Containment is no longer an option.
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