Courtesy of the Hamas PR department… er, Reuters (emphasis mine):
Hamas fired dozens of rockets at Israel Wednesday after Israeli forces killed six Palestinian militants in an eruption of violence that disrupted a four-month-old truce along the Gaza frontier.
The rocket attacks, which included salvoes that landed in the coastal Israeli city of Ashkelon, caused no casualties. Sources in Hamas, an Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, said calm could return if Israel did not retaliate.
Let’s backtrack a bit:
On Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes killed five militants and Israeli soldiers shot dead a gunman during an incursion into the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces quit the coastal enclave in 2005 and Hamas took control after routing Fatah forces two years later.
The Israeli military said the aircraft went into action after militants attacked soldiers who entered Gaza to destroy a tunnel that Hamas had planned to use to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
Now, let us review. Hamas, which is devoted to the destruction of Israel and the death of all who live there, works on a new means to accomplish same. Israel, for some peculiar reason not being overly keen on this deal plus not suffering to any great degree from the American liberal mindset that there is no genuine evil in the world save America itself, gets proactive. Hamas, in true terrorist fashion, “bravely” makes a stand by blindly lobbing rockets at civilians while crying to the world that big bad Israel is picking on them. Ah, but this time Hamas has topped even itself by getting the word out through its PR department that everything will be hunky-dory as long as Israel doesn’t get silly by acting on the notion that taking measures to prevent a sworn enemy from attempting to murder its citizens would be a good way to start the day. Remind me to give that a go in the everyday. I’ll go up to someone and throw some punches their way. Should they threaten to return the favor I’ll reply by saying if they don’t try to hit back I’ll stop hitting them. Think it’ll work?
Sarcasm aside, given that Israel has about as much reason to believe the coming Obama administration will support them in their ongoing strife with Hamas along with effectively working towards preventing a nuclear Iran as I do that said administration will lower my taxes, do not be surprised if in the final days before President Bush leaves office Israel gets more than a little (ahem) ‘proactive’ toward assuring its continued existence as a nation by confronting the madman Ahmadinejad via attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. And I’m not talking an ineffectual lobbing of a rocket or two in their direction. Obama’s first major crisis as President could well take place before he even takes office. How will he respond to a situation that could easily devolve into nuclear warfare should Russia or China forcibly intervene on Iran’s behalf, or if Iran has already developed nuclear weapons it will be more than willing to deploy? What if Israel responds in like kind, or uses tactical nuclear weapons in its first strike against Iran? Even if full-fledged war doesn’t break out, the world’s oil supply will almost undoubtedly be interrupted for a good long time. How will Obama deal with the resulting energy shortage both here and even more so abroad where dependence on Middle East oil in general and Iran oil in particular is great?
We live in a violent, brutal, ugly, fallen world. Obama had better act accordingly. If not, there will be trouble on a scale far beyond some Palestinian morons actually being stupid enough to think they can shoot at Israel and then avoid a response in like kind by saying if it doesn’t everything’s groovy.
