2009 Malkin Awards: I'm a FINALIST!

Andrew Sullivan has nominated me four times for the prestigious "Malkin Award" and now I see that I am a finalist for the 2009 Malkin. The competition is tough -- I'm up against Erick Erickson, Michael Goldfarb and Glenn Beck, among other worthies -- but let's be honest: None of them can compete with the Greatest Hypothetical Evah!

"Swear to God, if they ever want a Gentile prime minister, my first order would be to deploy the IDF in a north-south line, facing east. My second order would be 'forward march' and the order to halt would not be given until it was time for the troops to rinse their bayonets in the Jordan. After a brief rest halt, the order 'about face' would be given, and the next halt would be at the Mediterranean coast."

Sully later made that hypothetical hyperbole the basis of accusing me of advocating genocide(!?!), which of course I was not. Peaceful by nature, I grew up a few miles from the ruins of New Manchester Mill -- burned by Stoneman's cavalry in 1864 -- and therefore have always had a keen understanding of what war really means (cf., Hiroshima).

Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah recognize only one definition of "peace": Dead Jews. So when they start blowing up buses and firing rockets at civilians, these terrorist monsters are sending out an invitation to war, and they can't complain about getting an RSVP from the IDF.

Notice that this perspective doesn't require playing moral referee between Jews and Palestinians, or settling the historical grievances between them. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the reality that more than 60 years after Israel declared its independence, her terrorist enemies don't even recognize Israel's right to existence, and endlessly foment hatred against Jews. Ergo, Sonny Corleone in Gaza.

However, you don't have to share my idiosyncratic view of geopolitics to vote for me in the Malkin Awards competition. Any accusation of bloodthirsty warmongering based on that particular quote is invalid under that widely recognized codicil of the Blog Ethics Code known as the Glenn Greenwald Rule:

Anything said while ridiculing Glenn Greenwald is OK, because he always deserves it.

Hurry up and vote for me in the Malkin Awards, and be sure to hit my tip jar, because you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of Genesis 12:3.

If Andrew Sullivan is not stupid . . .

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Ceasefire in Gaza

Israel runs out of fish in the barrel:

Israel called off its three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, saying Hamas was "badly beaten," but the Islamist group vowed to fight on in a war that has killed 1,200 Palestinians in the coastal enclave.
Within minutes of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announcing that a unilateral ceasefire would start three hours later at 2 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Sunday, several missiles struck southern Israel.
"Conditions have been created whereby the goals set at the launch of the operation have been more than fully achieved," Olmert said in a televised address from army headquarters.
He said Hamas's ability to fire rockets at southern Israeli towns also had been severely limited.

Noah Pollak at Commentary:

Hamas is responding to the announcement with fresh barrages of rocket fire. Israel has recently been under immense international pressure to stop the offensive, including substantial pressure from the U.S. The unilateral nature of the cease-fire should be read in the context of Israel’s (and Egypt’s) desire to avoid direct Israeli negotiations with, and thereby the legitimization of, Hamas. By acting unilaterally, Israel affirms this policy of diplomatic isolation.

The timing of the ceasefire -- two days before Obama's inauguration -- tends to confirm my original gut-hunch feeling that the Gaza war was Israel deciding to give Hamas a good ass-whupping before the beginning of a U.S. administration that Israeli leaders view as pro-Palestinian.

Which is not quite the same as "I question the timing," however. I'm not suggesting anything conspiratorial, just summarizing the most obvious geopolitical considerations involved. And, yes, "ass-whupping" is a phrase you don't see often enough in discussions of geopolitical strategy.

UPDATE: Ehud Olmert:

"Hamas did not foresee Israel's determination and its seriousness in bringing about a change of the reality in the region," he said. "Hamas's leaders did not believe that Israel would launch an operation of this scope on the eve of the elections. Hamas did not foresee the strength of the military attack, and more than anything else, it did not foresee the results," he said.

The results? An ass-whupping for Hamas.

UPDATE II: Hugh Hewitt: You know who this ceasefire is good for? Mitt Romney Benjamin Netanhayu.

UPDATE III: Linked at Cold Fury.

Gaza update

Jules Crittenden suspects Glenn Greenwald of self-parody, although Greenwald's latest is actually one of his more rational exhalations. Perhaps his encounter with Hugh Hewitt steadied him. Or maybe he saw the light via the Sonny Corleone analogy. At any rate, there is no shortage of cruel irony in the latest news:

At least thirty people were reportedly killed and 53 wounded in an explosion in a UN-run school in the town of Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinians. The IDF issued a statement saying the school grounds were used by terrorists to fire mortar shells at the troops.
Troops inside Gaza The infantrymen returned mortar shell fire into the school grounds, the army said. Defense officials told The Associated Press that booby-trapped bombs in the school triggered the secondary explosions which killed scores of Palestinians on the site.

So, the United Nations builds a school in Gaza, which Hamas converts into a mortar base. (Michelle Malkin shows that this has been going on for months, and Ace has related thoughts.) As good an argument for defunding the U.N. as I've heard lately (of course, there are no bad arguments for defunding the U.N.). Other recent items:

• Steve Emerson ponders the "I (Heart) Hamas" bumper stickers plastered all over the New York Times coverage of the Gaza war.
• Egypt's Hosni Mubarak comes out forcefully against Hamas.
• Richard Cohen comes out forcefully against Hamas. (Nearly as surprising as Mubarak, although Cohen probably does not risk assassination by taking an anti-Hamas stance.)
• Ed Morrissey examines the parasitical nature of Hamas.
• Philip Klein explains how Israel protects its civilians.
• The war has achieved a basic military objective, namely disruption of the Hamas command-and-control structure. It appears that Hamas operations are now being directed from Syria.

Muqata has comprehensive coverage.

Sonny Corleone in Gaza

From my latest column at Pajamas Media:

By going into Gaza in Sonny Corleone fashion, Israel aims to ensure that the Hamas attacks -- as cowardly as Carlo's battering of Sonny's sister Connie -- are permanently ended.
Of course, Hamas being Hamas, they will never stop trying to kill Jews. Fans of The Godfather will recall that Carlo, being Carlo, chose a coward’s revenge by betraying Sonny to rival mobsters, so that at last Michael Corleone assigned Clemenza to deal decisively with Carlo.
If this analogy can be stretched a bit more, then, where does Glenn Greenwald fit? He's Connie pleading frantically on behalf of her abusive husband: "It was my fault! … I started a fight with him. … Sonny, please don't do anything. Please don't do anything." This is what the Blame Israel First crowd always says whenever Israel responds to repeated attacks by striking back against the terrorists. Always the demand is that Israel should make concessions, always condemnation is reserved for Israel's defenders who are, Greenwald assures us, "guilty of insufficiently weighing the deaths of Palestinian innocents."

Please read the whole thing. Video of the famous encounter between Sonny and Carlo:

Greenwald vs. Goldfarb

UPDATED & BUMPED: Ace of Spades weighs in:

The idiot Sullivan even calls Greenwald "fearless" for taking an anti-Israel position which not only won't lose him any readers, but is common wisdom among the liberal establishment.

Read the whole thing. I borrowed Ace's shtick today and got an Instalanche with it, so if you don't read the whole thing, the terrorists win.

UPDATED (AGAIN): Reliapundit delivers a barrage of facts with Black Hawk minigun ferocity.

PREVIOUSLY: Glenn Greenwald today accuses Michael Goldfarb of bloodthirstiness in the death of Nizar Ghayan (or Nizar Rayan, as some have it). Goldfarb's offending post was not a mindless advocacy of violence, but rather a reflection on the fundamental difficulty of fighting a fanatical enemy:

The fight against Islamic radicals always seems to come around to whether or not they can, in fact, be deterred, because it's not clear that they are rational, at least not like us. But to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause. Perhaps it will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel under the current conditions. Or maybe not, and the only way to stop Hamas is to eliminate its capacity for violence entirely. Or Israeli leaders can just try to find a diplomatic solution -- as a majority of Democrats apparently favor. It worked so well with the last cease fire.

The notion that the obliteration of Ghayan's entire family might "give his colleagues at least a moment's pause" is enough to inspire 1,500 words of Greenwaldian gibberish, including a shot at Glenn Reynolds for displaying a "wretched mindset" by suggesting that the Israelis are "civilized people and not barbarians." One mercifully brief slice of moonbat pie:

If you see Palestinians as something less than civilized human beings: as "barbarians" -- just as if you see Americans as infidels warring with God or Jews as sub-human rats -- then it naturally follows that civilian deaths are irrelevant, perhaps even something to cheer. For people who think that way, arguments about "proportionality" won't even begin to resonate -- such concepts can't even be understood -- because the core premise, that excessive civilian deaths are horrible and should be avoided at all costs, isn't accepted. Why should a superior, civilized, peaceful society allow the welfare of violent, hateful barbarians to interfere with its objectives? How can the deaths or suffering of thousands of barbarians ever be weighed against the death of even a single civilized person?

Wait a minute: Who is ultimately responsible for the plight of Gazans? Has it been non-stop misery since 1967? Or at some point over the past four decades, did the Palestinians in Gaza actually have a better life under Israeli occupation than they have had under Hamas rule?

This war was not caused by any genocidal ambition of the Israelis, but by the genocidal ambition of Hamas. Excuse me for repeating myself:

You cannot negotiate with a shark. To the extent that Hamas represents any coherent political philosophy, that philosophy can be summed up in two words: Kill Jews.

And, to further repeat myself, the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas by a landslide majority. The Gazans fully intended that there should be consequences to their election of genocidal terrorist leaders and their only disappointment is that the consequences are not (yet) what they intended, namely the death of every Jew in Israel.

You will perhaps be surprised (or perhaps not) that Greenwald imagines it is supporters of Israel who need a lecture about "excessive tribalistic identification." Sending suicide bombers to obliterate Shiri Negari and 18 other passengers on bus 32A -- that's not "excessive," eh?

UPDATE: "Jihad to its maximum degree" -- Right. Like they haven't been trying hard enough to slaughter the infidels. There is kind of a "Black Knight" quality to this.

UPDATE II: Fausta Wertz has a post showing how the genocidal Hamas mentality has spread to the streets of America. "Death To All Juice!"

UPDATE III: At NRO, Gregory McNeal notes that IAF is delivering phone warnings to targets, compared to the 15 seconds of "Code Red" warnings for Israeli civilians targeted by Hamas:



Dan Collins at Protein Wisdom has related thoughts.

UPDATE IV: The Times of London:

Israeli troops fought heavy battles with Hamas fighters in two densely populated Gaza towns today as the Army sought to split the strip into three sections to cut off the Islamist group's supply lines. . . .
The Israeli strategy of splitting Gaza into north, central and southern sections mirrors a similar tactic employed when settlers used to come under attack in the strip.
It enables the military to stop Gaza City being supplied from the south, stops Hamas movements and gives troops distinct areas to clear.
Israeli troops also took up positions in the old Jewish settlement of Netzarim which controls the main north-south road.

Hmmm. It's almost as if the Times were suggesting that Israel's erstwhile policy of territorial settlement was vital to the embattled nation's self-defense. Nah, couldn't be . . .

UPDATE V: A pro-Israel rally . . in France? Somewhere, a French intellectual is muttering to himself, "If only we could have kept the Vichy for another few months . . ."

UPDATE VI: MK Ham: "The Guardian is now eulogizing terrorist leaders in official 'obituaries' chock-full of euphemisms and moral equivalence. Not news stories, but obituaries."

Israeli air strikes kill cute kittens and Hamas terrorist leaders

But mostly Hamas terrorist leaders:

Senior Hamas terrorist Hussam Hamdan, who was in charge of Grad-type rocket launches into Beersheba and Ofakim, was killed in an IAF strike on Khan Yunis on Sunday afternoon.
Another senior Hamas terrorist, Muhammad Hilo, was also killed in the same airstrike. Hilo was in charge of the Hamas special forces in Khan Yunis.

Via Memeorandum, with a hat-tip to Ace of Spades for the headline style.

UPDATE: From the Israeli military Web site IDF Spokesperson:

• Between Israel’s evacuation of Gaza and the election of Hamas (Aug. 15, 2005 - Jan. 25, 2006), there was an average of over 15 rocket and mortar attacks a month.
• Between Hamas’ election and Hamas’ forceful takeover of the Strip (Jan. 25, 2006 - June 14, 2007), there was an average of over 102 attacks per month -- an over 650% increase.
• Between Hamas’ takeover and the start of the Tahadiya (State of Calm), (June 14, 2007 - June 16, 2008), there was an average of over 361 attacks per month -- an increase of an additional 350%.
• On Nov. 4-5, Israel launched Operation "Double Challenge", targeting a tunnel Hamas was building as part of a plan to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
• From the end of Operation "Double Challenge" until the end of the Tahadiya, (Nov. 4 - Dec. 19, 2008) a period of only a month and a half, there were 170 mortars, 255 Qassams, and 5 Grads fired upon Israel’s civilian population centers.
• Since the end of the Tahadiya (Dec. 19, 2008) until the beginning of Operation "Cast Lead," (Dec. 27, 2008) a period of little more than a week, there were approximately 300 mortars and rockets fired onto Israel.

Which is to say, Hamas deserved an ass-kicking.

UPDATE II: Utterly predictable Hamas response:

Hamas officials called on Palestinians to rise up against Israel with suicide attacks and vowed to make Gaza "a graveyard" for Israeli soldiers.

Right. Holed up in their bunkers, Hamas leaders vow to fight to the last Palestinian civilian.

UPDATE III: Welcome, Instapundit readers. Professor Reynolds gets an additional mention in the related post, Greenwald vs. Goldfarb.

UPDATE IV: Linked by Lawhawk at LGF. Thanks.

UPDATE V: Thanks to commenter Mike for pointing out the secondary explosions caused by cute kittens in Gaza:

UPDATE VI: Yes, DoublePlusUndead, I am a moron. And, in related news, don't mess with Sonny Corleone's sister.

UPDATE VII: Linked by the Smallest Minority and MacsMind. Thanks.

UPDATE VIII: Also linked at Pirate's Cove, A Blog For All and Random Thoughts. Thanks to all.

UPDATE IX: Linked by The Sundries Shack, which reports that sheep are sleeping easier in Gaza tonight.

'Destroy the Hamas terror infrastructure'

Israel launches its ground war in Gaza:

"The objective is to destroy the Hamas terror infrastructure in the area of operations," said Israel Defense Forces Major Avital Leibovitch, a military spokeswoman, confirming that incursions were under way. "We are going to take some of the launch areas used by Hamas." . . .
Large numbers of forces are taking part in this stage of the operation including infantry, tanks, engineering forces, artillery and intelligence with the support of the Israel Air Force, Israel navy, the Shin Bet security service and other security agencies. Meanwhile, the cabinet has authorized an emergency call up of tens of thousands of IDF reservists.

Meanwhile (via Ace), in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., hundreds of pro-Hamas protesters show their humanitarian civility:

UPDATE: Little Miss Attila is not amused.

UPDATE II: Meanwhile, via Zombie, a little bit of Gaza comes to San Francisco:

'We will remain on the path of jihad until the end of days'

At the funeral of murderous Hamas leader Nizar Ghayan, the demand for bloodshed is renewed:

The Islamist group vowed that its attacks, which have lasted for years and which finally provoked the massive Israeli campaign, would not stop.
"I call on the resistance to continue pounding Jewish settlements and cities," said Sheikh Abdelrahman al-Jamal at the funeral of a hardline Hamas political leader killed, together with his four wives and 11 children, in an Israeli air strike on his home.
"We will remain on the path of jihad until the end of days."

I hate to keep repeating myself:

You cannot negotiate with a shark. To the extent that Hamas represents any coherent political philosophy, that philosophy can be summed up in two words: Kill Jews.

The alternatives facing Israel were not to choose between peace and war, but rather to choose between fighting back or allowing Hamas to kill Israelis with impunity. There is no option of peace so long as Hamas exists. War against Israel is the raison d'etre of Hamas, and if Israel wishes to survive, it must fight Hamas "until the end of days."

Death of a killer

Can any reasonable person mourn the death of a man who sent his own son on a suicide attack?

Earlier Thursday, an Israeli aircraft killed a high-ranking Hamas official in Gaza along with nine women, including at least four wives, and 11 of his children. . . .
The assassination of Nizar Ghayan left dozens of people from neighboring buildings injured and brought up the body count on the Palestinian side to 425 people since the start of the campaign.
The IDF Spokesman said that Ghayan's house had served as a weapons silo and a war room for Hamas. Under the house, according to the IDF, was a tunnel which was meant to serve as an escape route in case of an Israeli attack. . . .
A lecturer at Gaza's Islamic University, Ghayan, 49, had mentored suicide bombers and would sometimes go on patrol with Hamas fighters. He was known for his close ties to the group's military wing and was respected in Gaza for donning combat fatigues and personally participating in clashes against Israeli forces. He sent one of his sons on an October 2001 suicide mission that killed two Israeli settlers in Gaza.
He was also an outspoken advocate of renewing suicide bombings against Israel. Hamas said Israel would pay a "heavy price" for his death. Ghayan was one of the most extreme opponents of Fatah, and supported violence against Fatah's men during Hamas' seizure of power. (Emphasis added.)

What a piece of work, eh? This is why Israel can't negotiate with Hamas:

You cannot negotiate with a shark. To the extent that Hamas represents any coherent political philosophy, that philosophy can be summed up in two words: Kill Jews.

Ghayan was a leader of Hamas specifically because he was such a bloodthirsty Jew-killer. It was his enthusiasm for killing Jews, and nothing else, that made him a Hamas leader. So good-bye and good riddance, Nizar Ghayan, your four wives, and the rest of the Jew-killing Ghayan family. The world is a much better place without you.

Sound and fury, signifying nothing

Roseanne Barr's idiot tale:

Israel is a NAZI state. The Jewish Soul is being tortured in Israel. The destruction of the jews in Israel has been assured with this inhuman attack on civilians in gaza. Hamas is the street gangs---this is equivilent [sic] to los angeles attacking and launching war on the people of watts to attempt to kill the bloods and the crips.

Call me old-fashioned, but if someone wishes to put their thoughts into writing, I don't think it is too much to ask that they pay attention to spelling, capitalization and punctuation. Coherent logic is optional; grammar and orthography are not.

(H/T: Omri Ceren via Hot Air Headlines.)

Israel: It's not about Obama

The current Israeli air campaign against Hamas positions in Gaza was undertaken without reference to U.S. politics, an Israeli diplomat said yesterday.

"We took this initiative out of our own concerns and the situation we faced and not because of events elsewhere," Jeremy Issacharoff, Deputy Chief of Mission for the Embassy of Israel, told bloggers in a conference call reported by Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit.

Some pundits have pondered the war in terms of what it means for the incoming Obama administration, but Issacharoff indicated that political changes in the United States will not influence Israeli policy.

Near the end of the conference call, which also included Israeli Gen. Relik Shafir, Hoft asked: "The Bush Administration has been supportive of Israel. Are there any concerns about the support of the incoming Obama Administration?"

Issachar answered by noting Obama's own words during a visit to Israel, when the Democrat said, "If someone was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that." Isaachar continued: "We see a large level of understanding with the Obama team. We have to keep a focus. The contacts before the election with the Obama Team were good. We took this initiative out of our own concerns and the situation we faced and not because of events elsewhere."

Gaza should thank Israel

They've been spared a menace:

A boat carrying international peace activists, including former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and medical supplies to the embattled Gaza Strip sailed back into a Lebanese port on Tuesday after being turned back and damaged by the Israeli navy, organizers of the trip said.

Air strikes are nothing compared to the kind of havoc that Cynthia McKinney can wreak.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin dubs McKinney's vessel the S.S. Moonbat. And let's take a trip down memory lane and remember that moonbattery is hereditary in the McKinney family:

Her father, Georgia state legislator Billy McKinney, shared his [explanation of Cynthia's 2002 Democratic primary defeat] with an Atlanta television reporter on August 19, 2002, the night before she lost. The reporter had asked Billy McKinney about his daughter's use of a years-old, moth-balled endorsement from former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young. Such endorsements were worthless, the elder McKinney replied, because "Jews have bought everybody. Jews." In case the reporter didn't understand, he spelled the word: "J-E-W-S."

The McKinneys are C-R-A-Z-Y.

Israel ready for long fight

Washington Post:

Israeli officials said that they were prepared for an extended campaign in Gaza, possibly including ground forces, and that the goal is to break Hamas's military capacity. "We will continue to attack as long as they fire," said a senior Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Israel's military, he said, intends to pressure Hamas to the point where the Islamist movement either "runs out of will or runs out of capability to launch more attacks."
Israeli officials said they were choosing targets that they believed were being used for weapons manufacturing or storage. The Israeli cabinet called up 6,500 reserve forces Sunday, and troops stationed along the border with Gaza were on "the highest level of alert," according to Israeli military spokesman Capt. Benjamin Rutland.

So, they'll just keep pounding as long as necessary. This attack was planned for six months.

UPDATE: Naturally, Washington's provincial elitists think it's all about Obama:

Part of what is going on today with Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak's unleashing of massive Israeli airpower against Hamas offices in Gaza is a test of Obama's America. Hamas's decision to end its "lull", or temporary ceasefire with Israel, also has a lot to do with testing the U.S. and seeing what the outlines of Obama's policy will be.
Barack Obama cannot afford to allow his presidency and its foreign policy course to be hijacked by either side in this increasingly blurry dispute.

Right. The world teeters on the brink of Armageddon and what's important is the political impact on Obama's policy. And people accuse me of being un-serious . . .

UPDATE II: Dave at Israelly Cool is all over it. The revolution will not be televised, but the Apocalypse will be blogged.

UPDATE III: Just in case you were worried about oil prices getting too low, don't worry.

UPDATE IV: Video via Hot Air:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

UPDATE V: Noah Pollak on "The Juicebox Mafia":

The only time its members write about Israel is when they can condemn it. The truth of the matter is that they have nothing invested in Israel other than their American liberalism and their Jewish surnames. Being a Jewish critic of Israel is ever so much more compelling and melodramatic than being just another leftist critic of Israel: Instead of trafficking in banalities, one can claim disillusionment, embarrassment, and betrayal. Pardon me if I call this out for what it is -- moral preening and pure cynicism.

Sort of like guilt-ridden white Southerners who specialize in moralistic hand-wringing over the backward ways of their homeland. Someone once defined a liberal as a man who's afraid to take his own side in an argument. When your neighbors are attacking you with mortars and rockets, and your biggest concern is that retaliatory action might be too drastic . . . Well, as Jeff Foxworthy would say, "You might be a liberal if . . ."

UPDATE VI: David Bernstein, while mining the rich motherlode of idiocy that is Glenn Greenwald, pauses to observe:

Hamas . . . is perfectly willing to fight Israel to the last Palestinian civilian.

Exactly.

'Appeal against the thunderstorm'

"You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm as against these terrible hardships of war."
-- Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, Sept. 12, 1864

Marty Peretz describes the Israeli attack on Hamas in blunt terms:

So at 11:30 on Saturday morning, according to both the Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz, as well as the New York Times, 50 fighter jets and attack helicopters demolished some 40 to 50 sites in just about three minutes, maybe five. Message: do not fuck with the Jews.

This, says Glenn Greenwald, is a "uniquely despicable view" and Peretz is a "psychopath" for expressing it, because the Israeli attack will result in "the slaughter of scores of innocent Palestinians" and "several hundred Palestinian dead -- including numerous children."

Greenwald correctly asserts: "Opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute are so entrenched that any single outbreak of violence is automatically evaluated through a pre-existing lens, shaped by one's typically immovable beliefs about which side bears most of the blame for the conflict." And he is certainly not exempted from the effects of entrenched opinion and immovable belief, unequivocally placing himself in the Blame Israel First camp.

Are there no innocent Israelis, no "numerous children" imperiled by the haphazard Hamas rocket and mortar attacks of recent days? Did not Israel warn Hamas that a continuation of the attacks would not be tolerated? It seems to me that one must either justify the Hamas attacks or else admit Israel's right to act in self-defense. Greenwald and other critics might argue that Israel had a right to act, but has overreacted. However, in doing so they seek to make themselves arbiters of Israeli defense policy.

Sherman's sober words about the "terrible hardships of war" were written to the mayor of Atlanta, who had complained about the cruelty of the Union commander's order for the evacuation of the civilian population of the city. Sherman's merciless attitude was motivated by his belief that the South bore responsibility for starting the war, and thus had no legitimate grounds to complain about the consequences of war. Sherman furthermore believed that by devastating the interior of the Confederacy, destroying its infrastructure and resources, he would hasten the end of the war and thereby end its attendant misery:

We must have peace , not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies . . .

Understand that I am a native of Atlanta, taught from the cradle to hate Sherman as a wicked instrument of the War of Northern Aggression. Nevertheless, he had a point: Those who inaugurate war must be prepared to accept the consequences. Hamas decided to begin bombarding Israel, and continued that bombardment despite warnings. Surely Hamas has no right to complain of the predictable consequences.

Beyond that, it is rather odd of Greenwald to speak of "innocent" Palestinians. Did not the Palestinian people themselves elect Hamas by a landslide majority? And haven't the Palestinians overwhelmingly supported every atrocity of this Islamicist fanatic group?

I would remind Glenn Greenwald of the words of Barack Obama's spiritual mentor, who declared that the 9/11 attacks represented "chickens coming home to roost" for America. Is it not possible, by the same standard, to see the Israeli attacks on Gaza as "chickens coming home to roost" for the Palestinians? Or how about we apply the standard of progressive hero Ward Churchill and view the allegedly innocent Palestinians as "little Eichmanns"?

Instead of imprecating Israel for its "brutal" and "grotesquely inhumane" policies, perhaps Greenwald and the rest of the Blame Israel First crowd ought to be grateful for the relative restraint Israel has shown in its response to the Hamas attacks. If the IDF had a Sherman in command, he would no doubt vow to "make Gaza howl" with a March to the Sea.

(BTW, it's worth noting that Sherman's attitude toward the media was ahead of its time: "I hate newspapermen. . . . I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast.")

UPDATE: Donald Douglas has a roundup of reaction to the IDF attacks.

UPDATE II: A fatwa against Israel:

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a religious decree to Muslims around the world on Sunday, ordering them to defend Palestinians against Israel's attacks on Gaza, state television said.
"All Palestinian combatants and all the Islamic world's pious people are obliged to defend the defenseless women, children and people in Gaza in any way possible. Whoever is killed in this legitimate defense is considered a martyr," state television quoted Khamenei as saying in a statement outlining the fatwa.
Khamenei also criticized some Arab governments for their "encouraging silence" towards the Israel's raids on Gaza. "The Zionist regime must by held accountable by Islamic governments. The heads of this regime must be held personally accountable for these crimes and the ongoing siege," the religious leader said.

The familiar denunciations of the "Zionist regime," the rote call for "martyrs" -- old times there are not forgotten, eh? Minor quibble: Do Palestinians qualify for "martyrdom" when they're gunned down by Egyptian border guards?

UPDATE III: Ed Morrissey:

Hamas insists on a war of annihilation and won't accept any other solution. Let them have it.

Guess the "uniquely despicable" views of Marty Peretz aren't quite so unique after all. We await Greenwald's denunciation of Ed Morrissey.

UPDATE IV: A very thoughtful analysis of the motivations of Hamas at HuffPo, which is not where one usually goes in search of thoughtful analysis.

UPDATE V: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

UPDATE VI: Oh, classic. Greenwald accuses Reynolds and myself of "swaggering around," because we recognize that . . . well, war is a terrible thing, and Hamas bears the onus of provoking it. Note well the double standard: Greenwald believes that the Iraq war is a terrible thing, and does not hesitate to condemn Bush for the invasion, but Hamas can shell Israeli civilians without deserving criticism.

Furthermore, hypothetically suppose that Israel's attacks on Gaza result in negative consequences for Israel. Suppose, for example, that Hamas succeeds in a major suicide-bomb attack. Greenwald would "swagger around" and say Israel has sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind. So whatever happens, Greenwald's response is the same: Blame Israel First. It's formulaic.

Here is the thing: The leaders of Israel must surely be aware that this attack on Hamas will incite a violent response, and have taken that fact into consideration in the cost-benefit analysis of their military offensive in Gaza. But is there any better alternative? Hamas was already doing everything in its power to kill Israelis.

You cannot negotiate with a shark. To the extent that Hamas represents any coherent political philosophy, that philosophy can be summed up in two words: Kill Jews. So long as there remains a single Jew alive in the Middle East, Hamas will call for that Jew's violent death, and once they've slaughtered or driven out all the Jews in the Middle East, Hamas will then go abroad in search of Jews to kill elsewhere.

It is only because Hamas believes they can find useful-idiot sympathizers in the West, to intervene and compel Israel to engage in suicidal negotiations, that their murderous fanaticism has any hope of success. And how does Hamas define success? Kill Jews.

If American Jews like Greenwald are willing to serve as apologists for Hamas, they've got much worse problems than the "swaggering" of a few conservative critics. Problem Number One: How do you sleep?

Israel strikes Gaza

Wiping out Hamas strongholds:

Israeli aircraft struck Hamas security compounds across Gaza on Saturday in unprecedented waves of simultaneous attacks, and Hamas and medics reported dozens of people were killed. . . .
Health Ministry official Moawiya Hassanain said at least 120 people were killed and more than 250 wounded. Officials said others were still buried under the rubble.
In one of the Hamas compounds, the bodies of more than a dozen uniformed security officers were seen lying on the ground. . . . Among the dead was the Gaza police chief, Maj. Gen. Tawfiq Jaber, witnesses said.
Hamas officials said all of Gaza's security compounds were destroyed. Hamas said it would seek revenge, including launching new rocket attacks on Israel and sending suicide bombers to Israel.

Of course, this kind of "revenge" -- Hamas bombarding Israeli towns -- is what necessitated the IDF attacks. The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.