Who Won in Gaza? Hamas? Israel? When's the Next War?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                   

                  Hamas terrorists.  Soldiers do not cover their faces.  Terrorists do.

I take issue with my favorite writer, Carolyn Glick, today with her article, "The Unfinished War" which came out in the Jerusalem Post.   She said that Hamas will only stop fighting when it is defeated, and Israel didn't defeat Hamas.  She's right about Israel only being in a temporary cease-fire right now.
                                                                         

Evidently the Haaretz newspaper, which is Leftist and very liberal, said  the IDF commanders are lobbying the government to allow Hamas to claim victory from this war, even though Israel had left its buildings pretty well smashed up and had found the tunnel system they were plotting to use to take over Israel. Carolyn wrote that if Israel doesn't give into their demands for open borders, Hamas would renew its attacks at the end of September, which would be during our High Holidays.
                                                                           

Has everyone gone mad?  One can't give into to Hamas.  I can imagine what they will do if the fishing grounds were expanded for them or easing restrictions on border crossings of people and goods into and from Israel.  This will not help to maintain the quiet.  Every time they cause a war by bombing Israel, I would shrink these areas, not expand them.  How else are they to understand their warring is not okay?
                                                                             

Wake up, IDF General Staff.  You can't forget their goals in life and those are to destroy Israel.  They are not the Kiwanis morning breakfast group wanting to go fishing.  They are a determined Islamic terrorist group plotting to destroy Israel and all the Israelis within it.  Let them do something acceptable for a change, like not shoot any rockets into Israel for X amount of weeks.  Then reward them by taking those fishermen who have their names in a pot and are chosen out with the navy to get a good catch.  Let them deal with landing in Gaza with a good catch.  Treat them with this  reward system for good behavior.  They have to show this good behavior before they can receive a reward.  But watch them like you would a den of rattlesnakes.  When they turn into garter snakes, then you can relax.
                                                                           

                                Qaradawi who lives in Qatar

Barack Obama has accepted Hamas's demand for open borders as the official position of the US government at the very beginning of the attack on Israel.  He even wanted to replace Egypt as mediator with Qatar and Turkey!  Egypt is Israel's neighbor and they are getting along well, especially now since Egypt got rid of the Muslim Brotherhood's Morsi as president which was Obama's choice.  Qatar houses extremist Muslim preacher Qaradawi who hates Jews so much he wants to kill us with his bare hands   and Turkey has also gone more extreme in their religious position and is not Israel's friend anymore like they used to be.
                                                                             

Israel had to defend itself, but the West certainly will never back this Jewish state, as we just saw.   Hamas has won their love for attacking Israel in the first place.  At the UN we see the USA and the EU writing a resolution that will allow it to attack Israel from behind Western human shields.  They would see the deployment of international military forces to Gaza who would oversee Gaza's demilitarization, which is what Netanyahu does want.

 However, The UN forces will fail to disarm Hamas.  The minute such forces arrive in Gaza they will become human shields preventing Israel from defending itself against Hamas aggression.  In the next round coming up, the IDF troops will have to ease up on their attack even more to avoid killing Western forces.  This action will make it impossible for Israel to fight Hamas in the coming future.   Hamas survives because the West has rewarded their aggression with all sorts of demonstrations in their countries against Israel for doing what Hamas plotted; killing civilians including lots of children in their attack on Gaza militants.  The lesson learned is to sacrifice a few thousand and gain the love of the world as long as you are waging war against Jews.

Yet, residents of southern Israel are not happy with their government for taking a ceasefire and not putting an end to Hamas.  They have had to endure the past 13 years of being shelled by Gaza.  Their children have grown up knowing no peace but being very friendly with the bomb shelters.  For them, Operation Protective Edge is a failure.  They must look at the bright side in putting an end to tunnel activity that could bring terrorists right into their own back yards!

Israel stood up for their rights in the midst of the worst anti-Semitism since 1939 and took the bull by the horns and attacked the bad guys.  They did right by warning the innocents.  It wasn't their fault and we know it that their people were used as part of the plot against them.  What else could they have done?  Quit?  Go back to Israel and hide out in their bomb shelters which is where they were when they decided to enter Gaza and have it out ?

No, they did the right thing.  Freedom against Medieval hatred.  Good against bad.  Light against Dark.  Israel had to stand up against all the nations who  really would whoop and holler if Israel succumbed to terrorism, even though they are next on the list to be hit as well.  "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?"

Let me remind readers.  Palestinians have been fighting against Israel since 1947 actually, before their May 14, 1948 birth.  They have been given every opportunity to create their own state and live in peace but they consistently choose to attack to take over all of Israel's land and they consistently have lost.  Whereas Israel had to see their promised land, land promised by the whole League of Nations, chopped into pieces so that they actually were allotted 1/4 of the promised land and even that is to be cut in half to become Palestine for the Arabs.  They accepted immediately with the thinking that something is better than nothing.  Not so the Arabs.  They've never changed their policy.  All or nothing at all, evidently.

There should be big rewards for Sderot and Ashkelon residents to have taken such a beating for so many years, like no taxes, and maybe R and R in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv; their choice for a month, or something else appropriate.  There should be TV programs highlighting these brave residents and how they have had to cope with such living conditions. But it has reached the zenith.  No more bombing.  Those times have ended.  Israel must take care of its own citizens first before it can help the rest of the world.

Resource:  http://carolineglick.com/the-unfinished-war/
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/02/uae-summons-qatar-envoy-over-qaradawi-remarks-20142215393855165.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusuf_al-Qaradawi
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.611911