Tabula Gaza

Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons. -- Associated Press, Dec. 27 

I'm absolutely disgusted by the reaction to Israel's ground offensive in the Gaza strip. Disgusted and furious. Most people are acting as if Israel just up and attacked without warning or provocation and killed a bunch of people just like you and me.

Wrong on all counts.

First, the provocation, in the form of over three thousand rockets and mortars fired willy-nilly into Israel last year alone. The world reaction: so what. They're just rockets, and they've only killed a few people. What's the big deal?

The big deal is that Hamas doesn't care who it kills. They reap the sympathy of the world because they widely scatter their munitions; Israel earns opprobrium because it aims. Something is wrong with this picture.

Israel aims, all right: precisely. They have to, because Hamas tends to locate its "facilities" as close to schools, hospitals and orphanages as possible. As Charles Krauthammer puts it, "the only thing more prized than a dead Jew is a dead Palestinian."

That's why I say the Palestinians are not like you or I. They're a death cult. Their children are raised with no higher aspiration than martyrdom. Their version of Mickey Mouse encouraged kids to die for the cause, at least until he was martyred himself by those evil Zionists. Farfur Mouse was duly replaced by Nahoul Bee, who's even more militant.

I've always marvelled at Israel's restraint. They trade land for peace and get less land and more war. Yet they still conduct their wars going well beyond the Marquess of Queensbury rules. They warn noncombatants ahead of time. I mean, who does that?

May I remind the myriad Palestinian supporters that if your beloved Palestinians ever get the opportunity to fire a nuke off at Tel Aviv, they won't hesitate. They won't even care about the consequences....well, actually, they'll welcome the consequences, all seventy two of them.

Israel, meanwhile, does have the means to raze Gaza to bedrock...but they don't. Instead they phone people and warn them that missiles are going to fall from the sky. And for this the world hates Israel? 

That can't be anti-Semitism talking. It just can't be. Why, some of our best friends...