Living with the terrorism of Hamas

Here's some lessons learned from Sderot under siege.

"The reason why Israelis have not found a solution to the Qassams is simple: they’re Israelis. Jews care about what others think and they’re moral to a fault—a very big fault. But there is nothing moral about the depraved state in which the launching of almost 6,000 rockets can pass without an overwhelming retaliation.

There is nothing sane about restraint in the face of a vicious war waged upon you. A bumper sticker on a beat-up maroon-colored car in Sderot reads 'A Time to Love.' But this is not a time to love. It is a time to hate; it is a time to war; it is a time to win. In other words, it is a time to be American.

If 6,000 rockets were launched at San Diego from Tijuana , rest assured that the residents of Tijuana would have little trouble finding parking because their city would be flattened. There would be no talk of ceasefires. America would wage war, it would win, and the rocket fire would cease."

...and:

"The siege of Sderot is about much more than one community. It is about the moral clarity of a people; it is about the courage of a nation; it is about the indifference and double-standard of the world.

But Israel remains the most responsible party, apart from the terrorists themselves, for this unbearable situation. It has prized immediate quiet over total victory and thus indefinitely delayed lasting peace. Its obsession with the 'peace process,' a euphemism for empowering dictators, has distorted its faith in justice and liberty. But victory will only come about through the unwavering recognition that Israeli democracy is infinitely mightier—morally and martially—than authoritarianism and Islamism.

Israel’s actions in Gaza should be the beginning of the beginning. Hamas must be annihilated and Gazans very faith in their way of life must perish in the agony of their total defeat, to paraphrase MacArthur. Only then may the people who elected the region’s most vicious terrorist group undergo the spiritual reformation so critical of a defeated people to reject militarism and violence and embrace civility and restraint."