A Proportionate Response Would Be to Eliminate Hamas

Excerpts from a Reuters interview yesterday with Benjamin Netanyahu:

Q.  And yet civilians are being killed in Gaza?

A.  "I think the international community is right to be concerned about the death of civilians.  This is precisely the point.  The Hamas is deliberately targeting civilians, deliberately hiding behind civilians.  That's a double war crime in itself, and very different from us.  We have tried to minimise civilian casualties.  When they fire into Ashdod, one of our biggest seaport cities, or into Ashkelon, another city, they hope to get civilian casualties, they hope to get a kindergarten, they hope to get a school.  When we go after the terrorists themselves, we hope not to have any incidental civilian casualties."

* * *

Q.  Is Israel seeking the removal of the Hamas government in Gaza ... in this operation.  Or is this something it is going to pursue further along the line?"

A.  "I think ultimately we need to do this.  Whether it can be done right now is something I don't think we should discuss here.  But it should be discussed because ultimately, if we don't do it, then Hamas will rearm itself ... Hamas openly declared its goal to eradicate the state of Israel from the face of the earth."

Q.  In the short-term, what needs to happen.  Can there be a ceasefire with Hamas?

A. "I think we want to make sure that the firing of rockets stops, but also that the capability to fire future rockets is also stopped."

Q.  And how long can this take?  Will it be weeks, days?

A.  "I don't know.  I think what is important is the goal and not how long it takes to achieve."

Q.  And if you're elected prime minister in the coming election, will removing the Hamas administration in Gaza be a key goal of your government?

A.  "Yes."

Q.  And how would you go about it?

A.  "With all the means necessary to achieve it."

Q.  What about the peace talks with the Palestinians, with Mahmoud Abbas, who has been critical of Hamas?  Will you be pursuing peace talks?

A.  "Absolutely.  I believe there are Palestinians who want peace and Palestinians who are terrorised by Hamas.  In fact, I think the people of Gaza are being terrorised by Hamas itself.  They're held hostage ...  I mean Hamas ... puts its arms caches, its rocket launchers in dense civilian populations.  They're basically using these people as human shields ... My goal is to defeat Hamas and to bring up peace with those Palestinians who want to live in peace."

Q.  And can that be done without targeting Hamas leaders specifically?  Do you see Israel targeting Hamas leaders in this operation?

A.  "I don't want to get into the tactics.  I think this Hamas regime has to go."

Hat tip:  Hugh Hewitt.  Hugh also advises that:

Be sure to read as well Alan Dershowitz's "Israel, Hamas and Moral Idiocy" in today's Christian Science Monitor. 

Everytime I hear some MSMer passing along a condemnation of Israel's alleged "disproportionate response," I ask myself if the critics employing that canard want Israel to respond with 2,000 rockets lobbed into Gaza with no targeting.  The use of indiscriminate missile attacks against civilians is a war crime. 

If Hamas had bigger and deadlier rockets that could reach farther into Israel and kill more, it would use those, just as Hezbollah did in the 2006 war.  The moral idiots that Dershowitz refers to are counting dead and wounded, not focusing on the means of the attack and the intent. 

Israel is declaring, hopefully once and for all, that it will not abide the use of such missile attacks and will strike back whenever they are employed and will do so until they end.

For more on “disproportionate response,” read the brilliant post by Michael J. Totten at Contentions:  “What Would a Proportionate Response Look Like?”

And some Jewish wisdom, via Shimon Peres:

Several days before the horror of September 11, 2001, Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres spoke to Conservative rabbis in an international conference call.  Responding to a concern expressed about Israel's policy of preemptive targeted killings of suspected terrorist leaders and the inevitable collateral damage, Mr. Peres defended the practice, citing an oft-quoted rabbinic legal dictum, "Im ba l'hargekha, hashkem l'hargo," "If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him (first)."

Comments

[Jack]

This post is included in my series of round ups of news and information about Gaza.

[Chris Walsh]

I wonder how the US would respond to over 200 rockets launched against her by Hamas. There would be immediate retaliation and total destruction of Hamas. Why is everyone so upset at Israel for doing likewise?