There is so much to say about events over the past few days, but I will try to keep mine very short. The web is full of relevant materials.

a. As usual, the press and the Israeli political establishment are ignoring what actually produced the massive rocket attacks on the Israeli south, namely the pusillanimous decision to expel the Jews from the Gaza Strip and to turn the area over to the Hamas. The result of that cowardice was entirely predictable and was predicted in these quarters.

The Israeli politicians at the time whined that there was no choice but to act as they did, the same whine they chant every time they do something catastrophically stupid entirely by choice. The only lesson learned by the Olmert people is that the same arrangements that produced the hundreds of rockets on the Israeli south this week must be repeated in the West Bank.

b. Air strikes are dramatic and produce a nice warm fuzzy feeling in Israelis watching the film clips of buildings and bunkers exploding, and this time were far better planned than in the 2006 war against the Hezbollah. However, they cannot produce real change nor solve the problem. This was proved in Lebanon in 2006.

c. There is only one solution that can work = R&D = Re-Occupation and Denazification. Everything else is a delusion.

d. Those who think the Israeli government is serious about fighting terror this time need to explain why Israel is still warning the Hamas about which buildings will be bombed before they ARE bombed so that the people there can be gotten out. Also needed is an explanation for why Israel is still transferring supplies and funds to the Hamas in Gaza in the middle of the battle, including of course sugar from which Qassam rocket fuel is produced, and why Israel has not turned off the electricity so that the press propagandists cannot serve Hamas.

e. It is of great value that the Hamas CONTINUE to fire rockets at Israel. Otherwise, the Olmert government would call a halt to the Israeli attack against the Hamas, and return to goodwill measures, "signaling," and new appeasements.

f. A law should be passed making it illegal for an Israeli politician to use the word "signaling." Any such pol should have his mouth washed out with turpentine.

g. It is clear to all that Israel should never have agreed to any "ceasefire" with the Hamas, especially not to one that left Gilad Shalit in Hamas captivity. There is a serious danger that Olmert and his people will now agree to a new ceasefire in which Shalit remains captive.

h. While it has not yet happened, there is a non-trivial danger that the Hezbollah will open up rocket fire at northern Israel any time now. The same person who moved the Hezbollah up to the Israeli border with its thousands of rockets, Ehud Barak, the man who essentially shot 4000 rockets at Northern Israel in 2006, is now pretending to be a tough fighter leading the battle against the Hamas.

i. Anyone who thinks the Israeli Left is merely stupid and not treasonous is being proven wrong every minute this week.

j. While we all know that the overseas Left is not just anti-Zionist but also anti-Semitic, it is also increasingly Nazified, as it cheers on the Hamas attacks on Jewish children and denounces Israel as a Nazi country when it defends Jewish children. Not a single one of the anti-Israel protesters on British and American campuses had been protesting when the Hamas was "only" shooting rockets into Sderot every day.

k. The international Left would denounce a Jewish partisan in 1944 who shot an SS officer and would use it as proof that all of World War II is about Jewish mistreatment of innocent Germans. Haaretz would agree.

l. Israeli Arabs are massively expressing their contempt for Israel's existence and their open identification with and support for the Hamas, cheering every rocket that lands on Sderot or Netivot. Every Israeli university has seen pro-Hamas protests by Arab students carrying flags of "Palestine," in some cases where Jewish leftist students and professors join them. At the University of Haifa law school lecturer Ilan Saban was one of several leftist faculty members who demonstrated with the pro-Hamas horde.

m. Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua have articles in the Italian press today protesting Israel's bombing Gaza. David Grossman has a long piece in Haaretz today demanding an immediate end to Israel shooting back. None of these writers ever found the time to publish articles anywhere calling on the Hamas to stop firing hundreds of rockets at Jewish civilians.

n. For those who missed the humor, the name of the operation, "Cast Lead" or in Hebrew Oferet Yitzuka, comes from a children's Hannuka song about Daddy bring home a little Hannuka menorah made of cast lead. It is a song well know to all Israelis, even the most secular, and its choice symbolizes the unification of Israel behind the savages.

o. I have been convinced so often and so incorrectly over the years that the Israeli Left and the Israeli academic world will be jolted into rationality by events. One of the most convincing times was when my own university was being targeted by Hezbollah rockets in 2006. Sure THIS will wake up the moonbats, I believed. I was wrong every single time.

Every single time the Left lay low for a few days and then emerged all the more convinced that appeasement and capitulation must be the only Israeli policy. There is no doubt that this time things will be the same. Haaretz is already cover-to-cover denunciation of Israel's operations and calls for immediate ceasefire and "negotiations" with the Hamas. Any day now hundreds of Israeli academics will be calling for Israel to meet the Hamas' demands.

Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments — both seriously and satirically — on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. Write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il His website address is
http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com.

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