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Gerald A. Honigman is a contributing writer for , a monthly publication based in southern Florida.
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By Gerald A. Honigman
March 26, 2004
So they finally took out the murderous imp...hundreds of buried and thousands of maimed Jews too late.
I know... He was a "militant" and not really a terrorist... meaning his victims were Jews not Gentiles.
You know what's really sickening about all of this? Most of the world's reporting... Not only of Israel's assassination of Hamas's Yassin, but of its continuous coverage regarding the organization itself. Journalists simply can't be that stupid... which means that they deliberately engage in misleading journalism.
Think about how many times you've heard a reporter or read an account about Hamas blowing up Jews on buses, in restaurants, or in teen nightclubs only to hear or read, along with it, that this was done to "end Israeli occupation."
Like it's difficult to access the Hamas websites (or for that matter those of the supposedly "moderate" Palestinian Authority's as well with virtually the same messages) to see what they really mean by "occupation." Or to get a copy of its charter calling for Israel's total destruction. And like the media doesn't know that Israel offered to end that occupation years ago, and was told by the Arabs that that was still not enough.
No brainers, Dudes...Yet you'd never know this via the media accounts... at least most of them.
Now that Israel has taken the first major step, it needs to follow through. Its enemies mean business, and it's time for the Jews to take off the gloves the way any other people would have done hundreds of dead loved ones earlier.
There's something to the saying, "actions speak louder than words." Israeli spokesmen need to review that one a bit.
There's no need to telegraph your punch on matters like this, regardless of whatever perceived good it will do.
Instead of announcing its war on Hamas's leaders, blowing a lot of hot air, and giving them time to disappear into their holes even more than they're doing already, what's needed is a dose of the old time Israeli pizzazz. Taking and targeting many of the top brass out simultaneously, as best as possible, for example. Israel will catch international flack over this anyway. So better to do it big time, all at once, so Israel doesn't have to deal with this manure after each individual hit. There's nothing to lose here. If America threatens to cut aid, Israel must take it on the chin. And it must tell its best friend that these are matters of survival.
Hamas is dedicated to the obliteration of Israel and the slaughter of Jews. The world's hypocrites and anti-Semites are not the ones to take guidance from in these regards. The time for fighting with one hand tied behind the back should have been over a long time ago. America wasn't afraid to use its B-52s, B-1s, cruise missiles, bunker busters, etc. when it got hit...and America is a huge nation, the most powerful on Earth... not a country that one needs a magnifying glass to find on a map of the world.
It was predictable that thousands of Yassin's fellow plotters and disembowelers of Jewish babes and grandmas would take to the street upon his death, warning of hellish revenge. Israel knew this. So why did it blow another chance to do what really needs to be done?
Besides the need to cut off the other heads of the snake, Israel must be ready to take out Hamas killers en masse. If hundreds of Jewish civilians can be deliberately and wantonly slaughtered, then what's wrong with payback for the actual and potential murderers? President Bush has warned America's enemies that those who harbor and collaborate with terrorists will share in their fate. Why is this proper for America but not for the tiny nation which has been the most victimized by Arab rejectionist barbarity?
Most Arabs have said that they would reject any Israel, regardless of size, borders, etc. The "moderates" have called Oslo, the so-called "peace negotiations," etc. nothing more than "Trojan Horses." At least Hamas has been honest....
So, if Israel wants to weaken its deadly enemy, it must consider the numbers game a bit more. A surprise from above must await the next Arab demonstrations... one that will take them out by the hundreds. And the hell with world opinion... those who fire bombed Dresden, annexed entire nations, nuked Japan, etc, when their own lives and interests were on the line.
The Israeli response must be exponential. Each time another Jew is slaughtered, the punishment must be increasingly overwhelming. Nice guys definitely finish last in this game... especially when your real and potential enemies vastly outnumber you.
Israel gained no acceptance by trying to do this the "right" and "moral" way. While going house-to-house and the like, deliberately putting its sons in greater harms way in going after the rats in their dens, it was accused of massacres and such anyway. It even got taken to court for building a fence designed to protect its kids from Arab butchers.
The Geneva Conventions specifically state that combatants cannot use their civilian populations as human shields...something Arabs do all the time. And those Conventions also state that the presence of civilians does not eliminate such areas as legitimate military targets. So Israel must do what it must do... and in high gear, full speed ahead. Arabs must fear Israel once again. They don't now. That's what works in this region...sad, but true.
After dishing out a few rounds like this...again, where each Arab assault is followed by using an Israeli version of America's own "Powell Doctrine'' (i.e. unleashing overwhelming force upon the enemy)... then Israel can step back and let the dust settle a bit. And up the ante further as need be.
The very cold "peace" Israel now has with Egypt came about only after President Sadat realized that the price of Israel's destruction would be so great that it would result, at most, only in a Pyrrhic victory. The "Palestinian" Arabs - many, if not most, of whom were newcomers themselves into "Palestine" from elsewhere in the region, including Hamas's "patron saint," Sheikh Izzedin al-Qassam, from Aleppo, Syria (as recorded by the League of Nations Permanent Mandates commission, etc.) -- have evidently still not learned this lesson. Until they do, Israel, unfortunately, has to become a more effective teacher.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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