What’s going on in Israel is very difficult to watch. First, I am anti-war. But of course I do believe in self defense.

In the past, I’ve always objected to what many people, including myself, considered Israel’s “disproportionate response” to incidents, often causing the needless death of huge numbers of civilians. And I hope that doesn’t happen again in Gaza.

I was, of course, opposed to the Iraq war. It was an unnecessary war causing untold deaths among tens of thousands or more civilians.

If possible, I prefer non-lethal solutions, like blockades and sanctions.

But what do you do when missiles are being sent at your cities?

Israel has apparently been targeted for months by Gaza missiles. Finally Israel took out the head Hamas terrorist leader there in his car. Was this reasonable? I would be hard pressed to say that was unreasonable. The man was a terrorist mastermind and behind many attacks.

Since then Israel has been targeting missile installations in Gaza and dropping leaflets warning civilians to stay out of the way. Is this reasonable? I really can’t think of what you can do otherwise while somebody is launching missiles at you. Sanctions and diplomacy should be used, but in the meantime you have an obligation to protect your people and try to take out the missile launching sites. What else can you do?

Meanwhile Gaza terrorists continue to launch missiles against civilians in Israel. Even during a truce called by Israel during the Egyptian prime minister’s visit to Gaza.

I’m still opposed to a disproportionate response that would cause huge civilian death and injury. But people who speak out against Israeli attacks really have an obligation to also speak out against the missile attacks being launched against Israel. Egypt’s president needs to do that. Otherwise he is forfeiting any pretense at being an honest broker.

The bottom line is that missile attacks against civilian targets have to be stopped. In this case there is no justification for Hamas groups in Gaza to be launching missiles against civilian targets in Israel. You can go back into the whole history of the Israeli-Arab conflict and find lots of things Israel did wrong. Even things which are criminal. But Israel did eventually withdraw from Gaza. It is not occupied territory. And civilians are not legitimate targets regardless. There should be no missiles at all in Gaza and Israel has a right to take them out.

doug