farmdoc's blog post number 253

These days, my main web browser is Google Chrome. When I open it, it shows thumbnails of my nine most frequently visited web pages. Since last Saturday night, the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz ones have been rapidly climbing the frequency ranking. Israel had no realistic alternative but to attack Hamas in the Gaza Strip: Diplomacy wasn’t working. Hamas was raining rockets and mortar shells on Israeli villages near Israel’s Gaza Strip border as well as more distant towns and cities. Especially since the negotiated 6-month lull ended on 19 December. No country on earth would’ve tolerated that insult to its sovereignty. And Israel, try as she did, ultimately couldn’t either. Undoubtedly the continued captivity of Gilad Shalit deterred Israel from moving sooner. But ultimately a military response to Hamas was inevitable. An entire nation can’t be blackmailed so. Currently the Israeli operation’s in its early days. Already the international community’s reflex responses of disproportionate response and collective punishment have been dusted off and wheeled out. Where were these responses last week when hundreds of rockets and shells were hitting southern Israel? I don’t know how long the current campaign will last, how it’ll play out, how it’ll end, whether its objectives will be achieved, and if so at what cost. But I hope it’ll ultimately be worthwhile – for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.