Thursday, June 19, 2008

Israel surrenders

There is no other way to describe the "truce" to which Israel has agreed with Hamas. It is an unquestioned political and military victory for Hamas, and a colossal defeat for Israel. As Michael Oren notes, a terrorist group once again achieved victory by not losing: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121383448634286853.html?mod=djemEditorialPage. The Ehud Olmert government has through its incredible bumbling and mind-numbing incompetence destroyed whatever deterrence Israel had left. With this move, Hamas will be allowed to rearm and get ready for the next, deadlier round of fighting, and it STILL holds Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit hostage.

I've asked this question before, but I'll ask it again: If Israelis don't care enough about their country to toss out their corrupt, incompetent, self-hating government, why should I care about their country?

1 comment:

Nizo said...

You have to consider that Hamas doesn't have that many cards in its deck besides Shalit.

Take it from this Palestinian, Israel is respected (and disdained - both sentiments are hardly mutually exclusive) by Arabs for valuing the human life of its soldiers and citizens in general. No other country in the Middle East fashions its military response to bombardment of its cities around the captivity of a single soldier.

In any case, the fear of Hamas' rearmament is exaggerated, just like Hamas' own rhetoric is exaggerated. Every time a Hamas leader is assassinated you hear talk about the earth shaking below the Zionists. Little of which has happened.