Down the Path

The Israeli government is suddenly, given the U.N. decrees, looking at an end to operations "soon."

This is the equivalent of telling Hamas to 'hold firm, and we'll be gone soon.'

I'm not a fan of violence. I've been a familial victim of it, and have administered it on a metered and irrational basis in my role as an IDF soldier. But statements like these have both a chilling effect on morale and a deleterious effect on all operations after the second phrases like these are mentioned.

Soon must equal 'when we've disabled Hamas' rocket projection capabilities.' Anything less than that is a betrayal of the incredible work of thousands of my IDF kith and kin, and the trust given by Israelis to the government. It is also an acknowledgement that the innocent Palestinian and Israeli lives snuffed out in the fighting were merely window dressing to a larger, impotent poliical play.

Want to do something solid? Continue the offensive. Adi, I know you can hit a target 5 meters across from 3,000 meters away: do it! Steven, push those shells, and point those mortars clearly and lethally succinctly. Amos the company commander: push your unit deep into enemy territory and make every shell count. And Amos the brigade commander: don't shirk: your unit, my unit, can do it, no matter what the odds.

The U.N. and other misinormed and malinformed organizations will call for a stop to the "violence." They'll talk about the "relative" number of people killed and injured, and the "plight" of Palestinian civilians "caught" in the cross-fire. Ignore them. If Hamas was a real government it might care about its constituents. If the naive Westerners were capable (a feat I think beyond them) of understanding the merits of 'threat' in a dispassionate way they might understand our (Israeli) predicament.

The real measure of Tsipi Livni and Ehud Barak in this war is not their ability to call a halt to the fighting: it's their ability to continue to fight until the strategic, not internal political, goals are attained.

Unortunately, I have little faith that honest passion will suffice against the fluffy, idiotic protestations of the EU.