My response to Bacevich anti-israel article in the Boston Globe

By Dr. M. Nazarathy

The lessons of Gaza

By Andrew J. Bacevich -January 08, 2009

If Obama fails to grasp the essential lessons of the Iraeli-Palestinian conflict, the nation's own bloody chronicle of uprisings, incursions, invasions, and tit-for-tat retaliation will continue.

MY RESPONSE AS POSTED WITH THE BOSTON GLOBE on Jan 8th

"Rather than enhancing Israeli security, occupation has produced a never-ending war of attrition" the historian said.

The "mantra" of occupation is so entrenched with these "historians" that when Israeli occupation ends and aggression from the freed areas intensifies, they just ignore or suppress it -as it does not fit their theory.

This is true of both Gaza and Lebanon which have been freed of occupation! Give me one reason why Hizballa should have been justified to attack after Israel pulled out of Lebanon six years ago. Give me one reason why Hamas should ballistically terrorize southern Israel for three years after Gaza was handed the keys to manage its own - and don't say - as they do - because Gaza has been under siege - as the siege is the direct result of their attacks and constant military buildup by Iranian weapons smuggling, rather than the cause of these attacks.

Well, I shall give you the obvious reason - which appears nowhere in your learned piece - they have a fanatic ideology of Jihad against Christians and Jews - with the Jews being the more accessible target - same ideology shared by AlQaeda and Iran.

Let me remind you, Mr. Bacevich, that the world hailed when Israel retreated from Gaza 3 years ago. Gaza was about to become the Singapore of the Mid East as the wealthy Arab states were preparing to pour heaps of money into it, but then Hamas took over (which we owe to Bush's insistence on "democracy") and threw it into a dark age of Islamic extremism.

Israel said back then when it pulled out Gaza: "We dismantled our settlements in Gaza - we are out - but if you shoot at us from the area we vacated, we shall hit back with all our might" but never made true on its promise - until now.

The Israelis have no choice. They have been under attack almost every single day since they pulled out of Gaza in 2005. Innocent people have been maimed and killed, terrorized, their lives disrupted, day after day, month after month, year after year women, children, civilians. The Israelis finally said – enough is enough, but prior to that they tried one last ceasefire, which as you know, lasted a few months, the number of rockets went down to single digit (that’s considered a “ceasefire” in this area) but about a month ago Hamas put an end to it and started sending 40-80 rockets a day into Israel.

Every decent human being should accept that the only reason to go to war is to REMOVE A PRESENT OR IMMINENT DANGER, TO PREVENT A MUCH WORSE WAR.
But isn’t it precisely the case here? We don’t have the hedonistic luxury some European leaders do, to agree to their calls for immediate ceasefire, just for the sake of getting a bit of quiet here and now. Not that haven’t tried it, we have practiced the tenuous art of restraint for three year, ignoring the suffering of our population, acting militarily on a small scale, negotiating temporary lulls to be repeatedly violated by Hamas (I think this restraint was a mistake, costing many more lives on both sides at this point).

When we pulled out of Gaza three years ago, we told you, we told the Palestinians that if they follow us with fire from the area pulled out from, we shall hit back with all our might. You nodded understandingly, agreed that we have the legitimacy of elementary self-defense, but you now pretend that you forgot. It is easy to be a bleeding heart for civilians on the other side when it is not your own family that is at risk, but what would you do if you were in our place? In fact what have you been doing in Iraq, and if you believe the US should not have been there, then what about Afganistan, and why are you hunting Ben-Laden while incurring at least tenfold "collateral" damage of innocent civilians. So keep writing articles disapproving of us fighting our own Ben-Ladens.

President elect Obama said it correctly after visiting the Israeli town of Shderot that if his two daughters were there and were being attacked he’d would use all the resources at his command to protect them. Would you expect the same for your daughters? Well, as an Israeli whose life is on the line, that's exactly what I expect of my government.

This is a clear case of terrorism, you saw that they attacked in Mombai, they attacked in Bally, AlQaeda struck New-York City twice. If the terrorists win in Gaza they will be emboldened to attack even harder everywhere else, Boston included.