[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
pat wrote:
archiewhittaker wrote:
Mufasa wrote:
Wreckless wrote:
Wich brings us back to the question: will this attack be productive for the Israelis? I just don’t see them dislodging Hamas?
Quite the opposite, support for Hamas is growing on the west bank.
This is my feeling Wreck:
Israel’s wars, engagements and Mossad incursions are not meant to garner International Support , understanding from the Arab/Muslim world and/or to dislodge any governing body.
They are meant to “reset” or “keep in check” those elements that wish for the complete elimination of the State of Israel.
There obviously is a certain “threshold” that Israel will tolerate, and that when that threshold is breeched, she acts.
A prime example are the daily missle and mortar attacks. These have been tolerated; but as the number and range increased; and as they got closer and closer to both Tel Aviv and the Dimona Nuclear Facilities, Isreal acted.
Saddam “pushed” that threshold with his Nuclear Facility; and Iran is currently “pushing” that tolerable threshold and will see Israel respond in-kind if that threshold is breeched.
Mufasa
Good post. If you don’t have the military capacity to take on Israel, and you keep provoking the country and its citizens, you can’t whine when they retaliate. Why do Arabs and Lefties expect “proportionate” use of force from Israel? Is there even such a thing?
If they DID have adequate military capacity they would have tried to wipe out Israel already.
Both good points. There is not such thing as proportionate use of force. That is just a farce, a propaganda tool which the Palestinians are masters at.
It’s actually a tenet of Christian just war theory. You don’t have to accept it, particularly if you’re not a Christian, but it’s not something that was just invented.[/quote]
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2009/01/05/israel-hamas-gaza-oped-cx_re_0106epstein.html
Here’s a good article. I like the conclusion:
"The face-off in Gaza, however, pushes the idea of proportionality one step further. The claim is that it is not permissible for the Israelis to kill many individuals, including civilians, to stop sporadic deaths from rocket fire. Sorry. As with individual aggression, proportionality has no place in dealing with deadly force, where the right rule is that all necessary force is permissible.
The Israelis are not required to slowly bleed in Sderot because Hamas is at present only capable of using primitive rockets against it. It need not wait until the attacks become ever more deadly to raise the ante. It should of course do whatever it can to avoid the killing of civilians, even those who serve as human shields. It can, of course, back off to take into account the political repercussions, and it has been well-advised to dance the peculiar minuet that couples bombings on one day with relief conveys on the next.
As these examples show, the riddle of self-defense has no tidy theoretical solution. If overwhelming force is needed to stop persistent deadly attack against nations or groups that flout international law, then so be it. The sooner the international community acknowledges that principle, the sooner it will intervene constructively to stop bloodshed–by putting troops on the ground in Gaza if necessary, and by convicting top Hamas leaders of crimes against humanity."
