Guest AuthorOn July 12 Israeli troops entered the Gaza Strip and began their operation to stop Hamas from attempting to destroy the Jewish state one rocket at a time and there’s no indication that the fighting will end soon.
As each day passes, Israel’s “Operation Defensive Edge” is becoming a bloody, devastating war.
The result is becoming more certain: Israel will not stop its assault against Hamas, whose strategy is to use innocent Palestinians as human shields both to frustrate the Israelis on the battlefield and to win a cynical public relations battle that has fueled anti-Semitism in the Western world.
We Americans need to man up in support of the Israelis.
Despite our uber-liberal weakness to stomach mass civilian casualties in the conduct of war (born out of our defeat in Vietnam and our half-assed military and political efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan), Americans and our allies need to recognize that when it come to the survival of a nation, total war is justified. This is particularly true when the civilian population being hurt supports the enemy’s ideology and warfare tactics, much like Southerners during the Civil War.
Avoiding civilian casualties with precision attacks isn’t possible in a densely populated place like the Gaza Strip. Instead, the enclave needs to be destroyed and its residents relocated.
The Obama administration’s reaction to the fighting is predictable. Secretary of State John Kerry, whose failed and rather stupid conduct of foreign policy in the Mideast has resulted in a meltdown in the region, has become practically an ambassador of goodwill for Hamas. His efforts to broker a ceasefire have been pathetic.
Instead of encouraging the Israelis to eliminate Hamas, which would send a strong message to other terror groups, the Obama administration has joined the handwringing about the civilians losing their lives in Gaza (and sadly not so much on Israeli soil).
Obama Press Secretary Josh Earnest recently went on record castigating the Israelis, stating “there is more (Israel) should do” in their efforts to avoid Gaza civilian casualties.
No matter how the Israelis conduct this “operation,” it can’t win the PR battle on the CNN front — and shouldn’t care about it either.
Hamas and its supporting population shouldn’t be allowed to exist anymore in the Gaza Strip.
And Obama and Kerry and their fellow weak-kneed followers need to follow Hamas’ former supporters who now criticize the group’s strategy in this round of fighting, and stop castigating Israel.
We must recognize that no matter how it looks on cable news, unrestrained warfare is justified and even righteous in certain situations.
Steven Kurlander blogs at Kurly’s Kommentary (stevenkurlander.com) and writes for Context Florida and The Huffington Post and can be found on Twitter @Kurlykomments. He lives in Monticello, N.Y. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
