The Israel Defense Force is shaping the battlefield in preparation for military action in Gaza, in response to the attack and kidnapping of its soldiers. Two cogent points about the situation:
- The cross-border attack by Hamas puts to rest the convenient fiction that Hamas would be content with a two-state solution. Actions speak louder than words.
- Ironically, the attack was not an act of terrorism. It was a clear-cut act of war by a national government. This ironically frees the Israelis to respond with the level of force appropriate to war, not just police action.
So the situation, while a further tragedy, has the silver lining of clarifying the battle lines, as it were. Hamas, in its capacity as a national government, has engaged in an act of war against another national government. This means that the Israelis may respond in kind.
Of course Israel will be vilified first on general principles and then on every conceivable incident of violations of the rules of war, including utterly fraudulent ones, as has proved so often in the past. Who wants to bet that Hamas will abide by those same rules, as opposed to, oh, I don’t know, using civilian women and children as human shields, or using ambulances to transport soldiers and arms?