Here’s Time’s cover on the Israel/Hamas conflict.
They think Israel is trying to “punish” Hamas. No. Israel is trying to destroy Hamas. Time wants Israel to lose. They do not understand that Israel’s choice is not between war and peace — it’s between life and death. If Israel does not win, does not stomp Hamas flat, does not kill its leaders and as many of its out-of-uniform soldiers as possible, break its back and hang it out to dry, Israel will be destroyed and all its people (yes, say it with me now, “The Jooos!”) killed, murdered, in accordance with the word of Allah through his Prophet Mohammad.
You do not “punish” rabid predators; it is not possible to negotiate with them. All you can do is kill them and burn the bodies so as to prevent infection of others.
Israel must win, must, or it will be destroyed. Watch the video again. This is what Hamas teaches its children. If Hamas and its ilk are not defeated and destroyed, this is what they will teach your children, what your children will learn on pain of enslavement or death.
“Tolerating”, much less covering for, jihadist radicals is, as Kathy Shaidle has said, “[performing] the intellectual equivalent of hiding Nazis in your attic during World War II”.
BTW, this is the thinnest issue of Time I can remember seeing. Sixty four pages. I wonder if they understand that this cover, and the cowardly, traitorous ideology behind it, is a big part of the reason why they are shrinking dying.
[update]
Of course, as soon as the Useful Idiots at Time declare that Israel can’t win, evidence starts breaking out that, in fact, it is winning.
Simon at Classical Value:
Hamas is Breaking
Iran’s ally Syria has called for a cease fire in Gaza that accepts at least part of what the Israelis wanted.
Syrian President Bashar Assad called on Israel to cease its military operation in Gaza immediately, while simultaneously demanding that Hamas cease its fire towards Israel.
In an interview with the BBC network Assad warned that the fighting in Gaza could lead to the exacerbation of Islamic extremism in the Middle East.
“The effects of the war are more dangerous than the war itself,” he said during Wednesday’s interview. “It’s planting the seeds for extremism and terror in the entire region.”
Assad accused Israel of refusing to honor the ceasefire that expired in December and claimed it was the State’s responsibility to halt the “murder” of the Palestinians and the siege on Gaza.
He claimed Syria, which plays host to a number of senior Hamas officials, was doing everything in its power to put an end to the fighting.
Aside from the usual anti-Israel rhetoric this is a big development. Both Syria and Hamas are supported by Iran. As to making extremism in the Middle East worse. I believe the war with Hamas is doing the opposite. It is showing that extremism doesn’t pay.
As for Israel refusing to honor the cease fire? I believe the cease fire never existed – the rockets never stopped. In addition Hamas called off the cease fire anyway. Just the normal cease fire deal in the Middle East. Israel must cease firing and for its enemies ceasing fire is optional.
Also at Classical Values:
A protest against Israeli operations in Gaza was called off because not enough Palestinians showed up.
Of course, Obama plans to spread his wings and finally, after almost two thousand years of strife, bring Peace and Light to the Middle East — by talking to Syria and Iran:
Obama is interested in making overtures to Syria and Iran.
U.S. president-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday said that he is going to work toward a comprehensive peace in the Middle East “on day one” of presidency on January 20, and that would include Iran and Syria.
“We’re going to have to take a regional approach,” said Obama in an interview with CBS Evening News. “We’re going to have to involve Syria in discussions. We’re going to have to engage Iran in ways that we have not before.”
“We’ve got to have a clear bottom line that Israel’s security is paramount,” Obama said.
In other words he intends to sell out the Israelis. He won’t be the first US President to pull that trick. What I would like to know is what kind of campaign donations Obama got from the Syria/Iran axis? I’d guess that some one knows the answer and is holding the information until it can do Obama the most damage.
We shall see. But I can say one thing. I don’t think Obama has ever played politics at this level. If Blagojevich can roll him he doesn’t stand a chance in the Middle East. They have had thousands of years practice in perfecting the art of the double cross.
Bold is mine.
Over at the Belmont Club, Wretchard asks:
Whenever you hear Gaza described as an “unwinnable conflict” ask yourself: do they mean that victory is similarly prohibited to Hamas? Bill Roggio notes that Iran, Syria and Hamas are aiming for nothing less than a Hamas victory over Fatah, and in the long run, Israel. For these three, war isn’t futile. It’s is working pretty well for them.
“The Iranians and Syrians are using Hamas to undermine the Palestinian Authority and other moderate Arab governments,” the Fatah official told The Jerusalem Post. “Victory for Hamas in this war would mean victory for Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. This is something we need to prevent.”
If that’s correct, then any outcome which ensures the survival of Hamas are deathblows to the peace process, since by definition it means a defeat for anyone willing to negotiate with Israel. Syria and Iran know this and are determined to keep the party of war in the saddle.
