Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 12, 2009

Hamas Lie of the Day

It gets increasingly harder to find "scoops" in the Palestinian Arab press nowadays, because so many of the articles are such clear lies.

There have already been articles about Hamas killing dozens of soldiers, and about Israel covering up all of these soldier deaths. These Hamas press releases get republished even in the Fatah-leaning media without skepticism.

Today's whopper is a Hamas claim that they captured an Israeli soldier. They then took him to a safe house. Then, the evil Zionists decided to deliberately bomb the house and kill the soldier rather than risk another Gilad Shalit.

Of course, Hamas didn't bother to release this fictional soldier's name. Nor did it mention any Hamas members who were killed or injured in this supposed house bombing. Maybe they left him without a guard?

One would think that for a group of accomplished liars, they would be a little better at it by now.

Another "defensive" tunnel found

Last week, Jimmy Carter called the tunnel that Israel bombed in November at the Gaza border, meant to kidnap Israeli soldiers, a "defensive tunnel."

Well, today they found another one, where the poor defenseless Hamas activists must have been digging a tunnel in order to purchase some cigarettes from Israelis.

How long before Jimmy starts calling Qassams "resistance rockets?"

Al Jazeera sermon: "Allah, kill all the Jews"

Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi had some garden-variety genocidal Jew-hatred and incitement at that favorite of moderate Arab TV channels, Al-Jazeera.

Video clip here.

Excerpts from MEMRI:

I address my first message to the aggressor Jews, those arrogant plunderers, who act arrogantly toward the servants of Allah in the land of Allah.

...We wait for the revenge of Allah to descend upon them, and, Allah willing, it will be by our own hands: "Fight them, Allah will torment them by your hands, and bring them to disgrace, and will assist you against them, and will heal the hearts of the believers, and you will still the anger of your hearts." This is my message to the treacherous Jews, who have never adhered to what is right, or been true to their promises, who violate each time the promises them make to you.

...Oh Allah, take your enemies, the enemies of Islam. Oh Allah, take the Jews, the treacherous aggressors. Oh Allah, take this profligate, cunning, arrogant band of people. Oh Allah, they have spread much tyranny and corruption in the land. Pour Your wrath upon them, oh our God. Lie in wait for them. Oh Allah, You annihilated the people of Thamoud at the hand of a tyrant, and You annihilated the people of 'Aad with a fierce, icy gale. Oh Allah, You annihilated the people Thamoud at the hand of a tyrant, You annihilated the people of 'Aad with a fierce, icy gale, and You destroyed the Pharaoh and his soldiers – oh Allah, take this oppressive, tyrannical band of people. Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.

There's plenty more, like castigating Arab nations for not destroying Israel and calling on a boycott of the "Zionist" Marks and Spencer and Starbucks locations in Qatar ("Here in Qatar, we have a branch of Marks and Spencer, which regularly dedicates its Saturday revenue to Israel.") But, really, once you see the punch line of destroying all the Jews, what else do you need to know?

The video shows a large and very receptive audience during this entire sermon.

"Free Gaza"'s latest snow job begins

The Free Gaza terror supporters just put out a new press release:

The Free Gaza Movement ship, "SPIRIT OF HUMANITY," left Larnaca Port at 3:00 pm, Monday, 12 January, on an emergency mission to besieged Gaza. It is expected to arrive in Gaza at approximately 11am (UST) Tuesday morning. Aboard the ship are 36 passengers and crew, representing 17 different nations. They are doctors, journalists, human rights workers, and five European parliamentarians representing Belgium, Greece, Italy, and Spain (see below for a complete passenger list). The mercy ship also carries desperately needed medical supplies meant for hospitals in the Gaza Strip.

Gullible editors will read this and think that Free Gaza is trying to help deliver medical aid to Gazans that is being blocked by Israel.

The truth is the exact opposite. Free Gaza is a group of people dedicated to destroying Israel. Free Gaza is against nations delivering humanitarian aid to Gazans! They have written in their own emails:

Although humanitarian aid is very much needed, especially now in Gaza, focusing on humanitarian efforts alone is a form of complicity in Israel's malevolent quest to destroy the Palestinian people.

And this:

Free Gaza is neither a "protest group" nor an aid agency. Our mission and our work are political. We are a Palestinian and international effort dedicated to the principle of non-violent direct action. We are engaged in active, civil resistance against the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine, and the violence this occupation uses to sustain itself.

And just in case you think that they only define "resistance" as non-violent, here is how they describe Qassam rockets aimed at Israeli kindergartens:

Do you know my dear reader how many Israelis were killed by Palestinians resistance rockets?

Israel has so far delivered 230 tons of medical equipment plus ambulances via the Red Cross in Gaza and about 300 more tons via the World Health Organization and UNICEF, not to mention many hundreds of tons of food and medical supplies donated by Turkey, Jordan, Greece and Egypt. If the Free Gaza people cared about delivering medicine, they could have sent it through Israel yesterday.

The Free Gaza boat is not meant to make a dent in the medical situation in Gaza, it is meant purely to make Israel look bad. To that end, they write in their email:

Once we set sail, we do not plan on turning back. We will stay at sea, insisting on access to Gaza, until we succeed or Israel gravely attacks or arrests us.

Since Israel has already informed them that they will not be allowed to dock in Gaza, they are deliberately putting on a theatre to force a showdown and gain more press.

And have no doubt, the press is complicit in making Free Gaza look like a humanitarian organization rather than a PR wing of Hamas that tells its members that now is the time for a "third intifada."

In fact, this so-called "mercy ship" has 6 doctors, 7 "human rights workers" - and 17 journalists, including reporters from CNN, Sky TV, the BBC, the Sunday Herald (UK), Mega TV and France's Channel 2. The reporters know that Israel will not allow the boat through and that makes a good, manufactured story.

Not that the presence of reporters will stop the Free Gaza terror-supporters from lying even more egregiously, as they falsely claimed last time that a half dozen Israeli ships fired upon them with live ammunition and still cannot produce a single video that verifies their claim that Israeli boats rammed them three times "without warning."

The media should not allow these clowns to manufacture "news" and to brazenly lie about this so called "mercy ship."

Open thread, Blogosphere edition

Yesterday I was asked to create an open thread where people can list the blogs that they have found to be good resources in the past few weeks beyond the many I listed here.

I started off with Zionism-Israel, an excellent blog and reference site from Ami Isseroff, that I have mentioned before.

Another brand-spanking new blog that looks to be a great addition to any blogroll is The Realist, who just commented here.

Who else do you like to read?

The zero-sum game and Arab mentality

In the wake of the 2006 Lebanon war, with hundreds of dead Lebanese civilians and a destroyed infrastructure, a Gulf News analyst - and professor of political science at UAE University - wrote:

The controversial discussion about the quality and significance of the victory and the size of destruction caused by the war is legitimate and healthy. But, despite the massive destruction in Lebanon, the Arabs seem to be better off after the war.

Logically, when Israel is in a worse condition, which is the case now, Arabs are definitely better off.

Although Israel was not routed in the battle, it surely seems defeated and frustrated. It is also living in a state of doubt and comprehensive review of its military and political performance during the war.

The equation of victory and defeat between the Arabs and the Zionist state has always been and will remain zero equation. This means that when Israel is defeated, Arabs have the right to celebrate victory.

Hatred of Israel can be found in the genes of all Arabs. Although it is hereditary, its intensity varies from time to time. All facts on the ground indicate that the Arab rejection of the Zionist entity reached its peak after the aggression.

The unification of Arabs in their deep enmity against Israel is a positive matter.

This is not some crazy member of the "Arab street". This is someone who has a respected job as an intellectual, who is saying that anything that is bad for Israel is, by definition, good for the Arabs. The Arab world, and a large number of its supporters, look at the Middle East as a zero-sum game where when one side wins, the other loses.

History shows that this is not an isolated opinion; in fact, it is still mainstream Arab opinion. Even as pragmatic and moderate a leader as Jordan's King Abdullah reveals that he still looks at the conflict the same way, that what is good for Israel is bad for the Arab world, although Abdullah is much more nuanced.

Westerners must understand this mindset. We grow up with the idea ingrained in us that the best solutions to problems are "win-win", where each side can gain or at least compromise in ways where their losses are minimized. This is so obvious to most Westerners that we cannot conceive of a mentality that is exactly the opposite - that if I win, you must lose, and vice versa.

The writings of the early Zionists show that rather than trying to hurt the surrounding Arab communities, Zionism intended to enrich them with a growing economy and modernization. When Israel won the Six Day War, it immediately set out to build a new infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank for the Arabs - electricity, hospitals, clean water. The Palestinian Arab mortality rates plummeted and their life expectancy soared under Israeli rule. From the outset, Zionism was meant to be a "win-win," not zero-sum.

On the other hand, the zero-sum mentality is heavily tied to the genetic hatred of Israel that was mentioned by the professor above that is endemic among the Arabs. It goes to the root of the divide between the two cultures. Zero-sum implies hatred and eternal conflict, "win-win" implies pragmatism and peace.

At the outset of Operation Cast Lead, Israeli President Shimon Peres asked an extremely good question:

Still I have not heard until now a single person who could explain to us reasonably: why are they firing rockets against Israel? What are the reasons? What is the purpose?

Everyone who has answered that question in the explosion of anti-Zionist articles that have been written recently uses a variant of this zero-sum answer. Rockets hurt Israel, therefore it is obvious that they must be good for Arabs. Hurting Israel is a worthy goal in and of itself, independent of any consequences. From their perspective, Israel's pain equals Arab gain.

This twisted mentality is most prominent in Hamas' actions now. Hamas has stated that Israel's killing of civilians is evidence of Israel's failure in battle. In other words, Hamas considers the death of Palestinian Arabs to be a victory! There is a complete disconnect between the major goal - Israel's pain - and any desire to defend Gazans.

For Westerners, it is self-evident that the purpose of a military is to defend one's citizens. When your own population is being killed, your military has failed.

Hamas' purpose, though, is not to defend Palestinian Arabs - it is to destroy Israel. This necessarily means that they want to inflict pain on the enemy by any means possible. Their own people are not to be defended: on the contrary, they are to be used for this ultimate goal. Dead civilians are just another weapon to "win."

Moderate Arab rulers have been able to at least understand the pragmatism of the West; they know that any open conflict with Israel will cause them to lose their own positions. But as we saw with King Abdullah, the Arab mentality of seeing Israel not as a partner but as an enemy is still ingrained in the collective Arab psyche. For the "moderates," the zero sum game is still very real, but it is played diplomatically, rather than militarily.

While Israel would be thrilled to send its experts throughout the Arab world to help with agriculture, desalination, solar energy or medicine, to increase two-way trade with the Arabs, the Arab world remains leery of anything that makes Israelis happy - even if it helps the Arabs. From the beginning, Israel has wanted "normalization" to be part of any peace agreements precisely because Israel thinks in terms of win-win - but the Arabs just cannot wrap their heads around this concept.

To the Arab world, if Israel wins, the Arabs must be losing. And as long as they have this mentality, there can be no real peace.

The literal human shield

Israel-bashers like to claim that the IDF uses "human shields" when fighting.

Well, here's one case where they are absolutely right:

Transcript from an Israeli news show, while showing reconnaissance video of a firefight:

# Here are the two terrorists,circled in red, hiding behind bushes
# The soldiers, circled in blue, approach ...
# without knowing they're so close to the terrorists
# And here is the first terrorist
# He identifies the soldiers...opens fire...but doesn't hit them
# The two officers immediately attack, the other soldiers descend from the scene
# The officers attack and kill one terrorist...
# meanwhile they don't notice the other terrorist
# the other terrorist throws a grenade...it explodes...but doesnt hit
# and then the two officers attack him
# the terrorist throws a second grenade
# and now pay attention to what the company commander does...
# he picks up the terrorist from the bushes
# and uses him as a human shield against the grenade
# the explosion kills the terrorist but not the officer
# lets see this scene again...
# the officer sees the terrorist, runs to him...
# --the terrorist throws a grenade at him--
# ...and then simply with two hands
# the officer raises the terrorist in the air
# and uses the body of the terrorist as a shield from the exploding grenade
# the encounter ends with a lightly wounded officer and two dead terrorists.

UPDATE: I just found out that this video was from a year and a half ago (h/t Jameel.) Doesn't make it any less amazing, though.

Arab world not happy with Hamas

Ahmed Abdel Rahman, official spokesman of the Fatah movement, slammed the Damascus leader of Hamas Khaled Meshaal for his bravado in claiming that Hamas is winning the Gaza war. Rahman said that to listen to Meshaal, "one would think that Hamas tanks are surrounding Tel Aviv." He said that Meshaal is speaking as if he has no idea what is going on in Gaza, and by his rejection of any negotiations he is selfishly sacrificing Palestinian Arab interests for narrow Hamas political interest.

Egyptian Minister of Manpower Aisha Abdel-Hadi, who is also in charge of stopping illegal immigration, has accused Hamas of "terrorism and corruption" and said the leaders of the movement are espousing "an extremist and terrorist ideology." She also tried to forestall the possibility of Egypt allowing Gazans to enter and become citizens, pointing out that Arafat himself was against Palestinian Arabs having citizenship in any other countries.

Qatar's leadership dismissed Arab pressure to close the Israeli trade office in Doha, saying that “they only want Qatar to make a sacrifice (while) they continue to deal with the Jewish state,” referring to Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania, which have diplomatic relations with Israel.

The Palestine Press' El Maamoun harshly criticizes Hamas, asking what they have done since taking over Gaza that has helped Gazan lives.He writes that Gaza had a chance to be a significant port territory like Singapore or Bahrain, but Hamas instead to emulate the model of Tora Bora, the caved areas where Al Qaeda hid. He said that Hamas has failed to go beyond its "adolescent" revolutionary thinking into making responsible decisions for Gazans.

This is not to say that the Arab world is not very concerned about Gazans, nor that they have any love of Israel. But the governments are not nearly the fans of Hamas that one might think.

Outright anti-semitism in Denmark "peace" rallies

EoZ friend Henrik emails about rallies in Denmark:

The first video is of the pro-Israeli rally held by Dansk Zionist Forbund (Danish Zionist Society). I'm not going to speak much about that, since the pictures show how peaceful and happy a gathering it was (I had multiple friends attend, but couldn't make it myself). About 3-400 people came out.

The other video is of the Palestinian counter-demonstration, fielding about 100, maybe 150 people. After their demo ended, they marched around creating havoc, throwing...Im not sure of the word - its called a kanonslag (thunder-blow), it's fireworks and explodes, but more powerful than a firecracker - into a McDonalds and stopping a car, pulling out a woman and her child that were sitting inside, before the police intervened and arrested about 75 of them.

Most of what they shout is self-explanatory, if you want I can explain, though. At the 0:44 mark, we have one of them Heiling in the typical Nazi fashion. At the 1:10-mark, the leader switches into Danish, and he says "Hamas will never be eradicated, on the contrary we would very much like to eradicate Israel from the world map. We want to kill all Jews around the world. All Jews have to be exterminated. That's obvious, there is no reason for them to exist".

On the 9th, there was a "peace" demonstration in the city of Århus. The attendance was divided in three: Muslim men at the front, Muslim women and children in the middle and the communists at the back. Note what the Muslim men are chanting (in Arabic) : "Takbir, Allah hu akbar" = "Conquest, Allah is the greatest". When the demo wound up where it was supposed to end, there were speeches. When a representative of the centre-left Radical Party ended her speech, the Arabs attending began shouting (in Danish) "Vi vil ha´ krig, Vi vil ha´krig" = "We want war, We want war".

So which ones are the "peace" demonstrators again?

Knock, knock - another example of Free Gaza/Hamas propaganda

The Free Gaza Movement is trying hard to be the premier place to go to get unfettered pro-terrorist propaganda. Here is part of a recent email meant to stir up rage against Israel:

1. Israel has begun a new policy in Gaza in the past two days called the "roof knock". This is when a "small" rocket is fired from Israeli military aircraft that is strong enough to blast open the roof of a targeted building. It is sent as a "warning message" to the building's inhabitants giving them between 2 and 3 minutes to evacuate before the building is completely destroyed. A number of cases of this new technique have been reported recently.

And what is the truth? From the New York Times:

A new Israeli weapon, meanwhile, is tailored to the Hamas tactic of asking civilians to stand on the roofs of buildings so Israeli pilots will not bomb. The Israelis are countering with a missile designed, paradoxically, not to explode. They aim the missiles at empty areas of the roofs to frighten residents into leaving the buildings, a tactic called “a knock on the roof.”

The evil-sounding IDF method is, yet again, a way to save the lives of Gazans that Hamas is purposefully putting into danger. And the FGM just happens to leave out the part about Hamas using human shields. This shows yet again that Israel spends time, effort and thought into how to save Gazans' lives while going after terrorists, and Hamas spends time and effort on how to endanger Gazans' lives in order to save their own. Hamas' and Islamic Jihad's tactics of purposefully hiding behind civilians is the evil here, and no amount of pro-terrorist "human rights' spin can make it otherwise. Plus, we once again see that Free Gaza is simply a Hamas PR front organization who cares little about real Palestinian Arab lives and much about whitewashing Hamas' crimes against the people they pretend to care about. Just like many of the "pro-Palestinian" protesters.

Another great post by Yaacov Lozowick

It's tough to keep writing good blog posts when others keep raising the bar.

OK. Here I am: a supporter of this war. The proud and fearful father of a soldier fighting this war. A man who hates violence, and shudders with horror at the sight of murdered children. I take upon myself responsibility for the deaths of those Palestinian children to the full extent a voting citizen is responsible for the actions of his government, his army: the ultimate responsibility, since I'm part of the sovereign. It's my country. I'm not a passerby, or a detached observer: I'm an actor in the events.

My justification is that it is a greater injustice to allow the evil to act unchecked, than to check them. Of course, we must take all reasonable measures that we not become equally evil ourselves; but once we've done so, and so long as we continue to do so, it is better to kill would-be murderers than allow them to kill.

This doesn't mean we must spend our days hunting down whoever might potentially be willing to kill us. I'm making a conceptual statement, not a political one. Of course using violence must be an act of last resource, and it must be calibrated to achieve its goals, and it must be done with the greatest of care, and so on. All those conditions must be met, and repeatedly questioned lest what was true earlier is no longer true now, and so on. Once those conditions exist, however, it is legitimate to go to war, even with the certainty that some number of innocents will die, because not going to war will create a greater injustice.

Read the whole thing. Hell, read his whole blog.

Hamas "no longer protecting Shalit" and other news

Firas Press quotes an interview with Hamas spokesman Abu Marzouk where he states that he no longer knows if Gilad Shalit is alive and that his safety is no longer a concern for Hamas.

In other news, Marzouk also claims that Hamas has kiilled dozens of soldiers and that Israel is hiding their deaths, in one of the many examples of Elder's First Rule of Arab Projection that is very relevant today.

This rule states that "Arabs will project their own crimes and worldviews on everyone else." The corollary is that if Arabs accuse Israel of a crime, they are invariably far more guilty of that same crime.

To give another example, Palestine Today accuses the IDF of using "human shields" in Gaza. This is laughable, as Hamas would have no compunctions about firing on its own civilians in order to hurt IDF soldiers.

In this same vein of lies for the sake of propaganda, as YNet reported,

We come across a local family in one of the buildings. Grandparents, a few young parents, some children and a few toddlers. Sitting on a rug, their legs are covered in blankets and two soldiers are standing guard nearby. "What about them?" I ask. "They're free to go if they want to, but they don't want to," said Eilon Perry, Givati's operations officer. "They informed us they would be staying in the house and we have no choice but to accept that."

The family suddenly notices the cameras, and immediately, the expression on their faces changes. "We have no food," they say in Arabic, as one of the youngsters suggests we interview him in English about their plight. Givati troops are extremely concerned about being portrayed as abusing innocent civilians. Perry points to a stack of canned goods, water bottles and other provisions. "We provided some of that and they cook and eat quite well," he said. The Palestinians seem to understand him and one of them smiles. It's a war – they had to try.

The citizens and "witnesses" themselves that are relied upon by the media are in on the game, and will anxiously seek out the media to repeat whatever the current propaganda line is. If an "eyewitness" is being quoted by name, you can be certain that they are making sure that they don't say anything that would make Hamas angry.

Back to Shalit's case, the loudest claims about Israel is that the IDF is breaking international laws in Gaza. Well, besides the laws we've already proven that Hamas is breaking constantly, there's another little one about how to treat prisoners of war, and Hamas now admits that it is ignoring that one, too.

PaHamas Pajamas! [new EoZ video]

The official sleepwear of the Al Qassam Martyrs Brigades!

The myth of the "pro-Palestinian" rallies

The media loves to cover demonstrations, the more colorful and loud the better. And there has been ample opportunity to show lots of demonstrations about Gaza these past couple of weeks. The only problem is that the vast majority of the protesters don't really care about "Palestinians." When thousands of Palestinian Arabs were killed during Black September in 1971, there were no crowds at Jordanian embassies. When hundreds of Palestinian Arab civlians were killed in a single day in Lebanon in1975, no one protested. When thousands of Palestinian Arab civilians were murdered by Syrian-backed militia in Lebanese camps in 1985-86 (including Sabra and Shatila!), there were no demonstrations. When hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs were expelled from Kuwait in a single week in 1991, there were no rallies. When Hamas and Fatah fought only two summers ago, killing hundreds in a month, the so-called "peace camp" was silent. Only when Israel gets involved in a conflict do these "activists" come out of the woodwork. Ignoring the many conflicts around the world, their fake indignation is ignited at the thought of Israel defending itself. Muslims who barely go "tsk, tsk" when Arabs kill each other are driven to a frenzy when Israelis finally decide to act after years of provocation. International ANSWER, the Communist party behind a large number of Western anti-Israel demonstrations, has nothing that is "pro-Palestinian" on its website; only diatribes against Israel and the United States. The current rallies aren't pro-Palestinian or even anti-war - they are purely anti-Israel, with more than a little anti-semitism. They are not crying over civilian deaths, they are gleefully calling Zionists "Nazis." They aren't demanding human rights; they are demanding Israel's destruction. The media is part of the problem when they refer to these demonstrations as being "pro-Palestinian." They don't give a damn about Palestinian Arabs, they never have and they never will.

The advantages of craziness

I once had a co-worker - a really nice guy, actually - who was a master manipulator of other people. He would set up office politics in ways that would benefit himself, without anyone really realizing that he was calling the shots.

One way he manipulated the boss was to give an aura of unpredictability and scariness. Once every couple of months, he would (quite purposefully) get into an argument with the boss at a staff meeting, and it would degrade into a shouting match. This was meant to keep the management a little leery of him, and the boss would give him a wide swath to avoid these embarrassing confrontations. The net result was that management felt that he was a good worker as long as his superiors didn't cross any of his "irrational" lines.

In other words, he would use craziness as a tool to keep himself on top.

I am reminded of this by this posting on Power Line, quoting JCPA analyst Dan Diker:

Israel may have reached a deterrent moment in its war in Gaza against Iranian-backed Hamas. I spoke with a senior Arab diplomat last night. He told me that the Arab street is afraid that "the Jews have gone crazy."
Yes, it's true. He noted, "Israel has begun to restore its deterrence" in the Arab world. "Hamas miscalculated," he added. They had thought Israel would not attack, but would merely accede to tougher Hamas demands for an improved "Tahdiya," their version of a temporary calm.

This is perhaps one of the more optimistic assessments I have heard from Arab colleagues recently. There is supporting documentation. Hizbullah's immediate public denial yesterday of the Katusha rocket attack from Southern Lebanon against Israel's North and the reports on Lebanese TV of convoys of Lebanese (read: Hizbullah) vehicles moving north in expectation of a major Israeli reprisal strengthens this sense.

It's also notable that Al Jazeera's reportage yesterday avoided interviewing ordinary Gazans. Arab sources in Gaza confided that the public anger is not directed at Israel any more than it is at Hamas. Al Jazeera, doing a superb job as PR agents for Iran's proxies, likely wanted to avoid risking those types of reactions from the battlefield.

The Arabs thought they had the Jews figured out. They thought they knew just how far to push them and still get concession after concession; they thought they knew that Israelis would inevitably bow to public pressure, they thought that Israel couldn't stomach the civilian deaths that Hamas was orchestrating.

But once they get the idea that they miscalculated, things change - not only for this war but for the next couple of decades.

And you can only make predictions about someone else's behavior when they act consistently and rationally. Once they start acting crazy, you have to be afraid, because you simply can no longer guess what is coming next.

I don't think that Israel is feigning craziness like my friend used to. Israelis clearly had enough of the Qassams over the past seven years and are not going to let them go on, world pressure notwithstanding. But from the Arab perspective they have crossed a line that Arabs felt comfortable would never be crossed. The Hamas strategy of using human shields and putting Gazans in grave danger in order to pressure Israel is backfiring - because Israel is not being daunted by the civilian deaths this time. From Israel' s perspective, it is clear that all civilian deaths are Hamas' fault; from the Arab perspective, it looks like Israel really is indiscriminately killing civilians this time.

It is not so much that the Arabs are afraid that the Jews have gone crazy - they are afraid that the Jews are starting to act like Arabs.

And if Israel is fighting a war with the same rulebook that the Arabs have used forever, that is something to be scared of.

Today's "craziness" could end up saving many, many lives in the future. Because in the end, it is not concessions or land or handshakes that will protect Israel; it is deterrence.