On Wednesday, shrapnel wounds to the chest killed Roni Yechiah, a 47-year-old father of four when a Qassam rocket hit his car on the outskirts of Sderot. On Monday, 10-year-old Yossi Haimov suffered severe injuries from a Qassam. On February 11, 8-year-old Osher Twito had his legs amputated after being hit by shrapnel from a Qassam. On Wednesday, too, a Katyusha rocket exploded on the helipad of a hospital in Ashkelon while the hospital was treating casualties from Sderot. Two more Katyusha rockets hit Ashkelon, one in an industrial zone and another in the middle of a residential area.

The rise in serious and fatal injuries corresponds to a rise in the number and increasing precision of the rockets. More than 800 rockets and mortar shells have been fired into Israel from Gaza this year, an increase in the tempo from 2007, when 2,300 rockets hit. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the number is more than 4,500.

This is not a nuisance; this is an attack on the State of Israel by an organization backed by a state dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews.

Hamas said the shelling Wednesday was in retaliation for an Israeli air strike in Gaza that killed three children. Indeed, because Abdullah Edwan and Mohammed Abu Aker were hiding behind them. Edwan was a Hamas rocket engineer and Abu Aker a Hamas rocket squad commander, targets of the Israeli strike. Locals told The New York Times the two had returned from Iran a few weeks ago.

Secretary of State Rice's response was the usual mixed bag. Asked if she advised against what a reporter called a "disproportionate" IDF response, she said, "I think that's not a good way to address this issue. The issue is that the rocket attacks need to stop." She added humanitarian concerns for the "innocent people in Gaza who are being hurt," even as she agreed that "Hamas activities there are responsible."

Rockets do not launch themselves; they cannot stop themselves.

The better formulation, Mme. Secretary, is "Hamas has to stop launching rockets." Then, Mme. Secretary, put a little muscle behind it. The way to "address this issue" and free "innocent people" - Palestinian and Israeli - from the depredations of Hamas, is to rid Gaza of Hamas and its Iranian support.

U.S. policy should be unwavering support of Israeli actions to protect the Israeli people. Perhaps American clarity would encourage the Palestinian people to rise up against their jailors, much like the Iraqis did against al Qaeda in Anbar, but if not, it might at least have the effect of removing concern about an American reaction from the Israeli government.

Bryen is special projects director for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)






PETE'S PLACE

Skeptically evaluating news from Gaza

By Peter Garas

CANBERRA, Australia —"Sixteen Palestinians - the four boys, three adult civilians and nine militants - were killed in missile strikes on Thursday, the medical workers said.

The father of two of the youths wept in a Gaza hospital, unable to speak.
Medical workers said the boys were playing soccer when an Israeli missile struck. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the missile targeted militants who had fired rockets at southern Israel."

This is the story I read from the ABC News here in Australia.

The question now is what to believe from this simple set of statements?

I suspect that those who are hostile to Israel and its actions will focus on the statement from the medical workers.

The words "the boys were playing soccer when an Israeli missile struck" will of course convey the message that the Israelis are brutal, immoral, non-caring people who attack and kill innocent children just being children, out innocently playing soccer.

Those whose point of view is a little more aligned to the Israeli cause might suggest that targeting militants who had fired rockets at Southern Israel is not incompatible with the story of the medics.

Think about it from a time frame perspective:

1. rockets are fired and take some time to hit their targets
   
   
2. Israeli authorities take time to check the sites where the rockets have landed. They take more time to see if their systems can trace where these rockets had come from and then take more time to organise a missile strike in response.

What I am getting at is that quite a deal of time is likely to have passed before the Israelis respond to the rocket attacks.

If Shakespeare was right and people undertake multiple roles and wear 'manifold garb' in life then it's possible for young people to be firing rockets at one time frame and playing soccer at another time.

If you can understand and believe that many of the militants in Gaza (as elsewhere) are youths (indeed many soldiers in all wars, insurrections, rebellions, terrorist actions are young people). If you can understand that often in Gaza it is difficult if not impossible to distinguish between the multiple roles that people have to play in life. Then, here is no doubt that at some point young people will play a sport or play the role of a child or a son. This does not prevent or preclude them from playing another role at another point in time including that of a militant who sets up and fires rockets into Israel.

One the one hand it's possible that the Israelis struck at militants and mistakenly killed some innocent children who were doing nothing more heinous than playing soccer. On the other hand it's also possible that these youths who are described as children were in reality militants.

There is no doubt that another part of the news— which refers to the death of a six-month-old child when a missile hit a militant's house while he was there with members of his family— is regrettable, but the Israelis will target militant commanders whenever they can find out where they are. If these militant commanders put their families at risk, that's just too bad.

Consider the response of one Hamas leader who suggested that their women will continue to bear children whose fathers will mourn them as martyrs when they are killed. This suggests that perhaps at least some of the propaganda that hopes to horrify the world, with stories of nasty Israelis killing innocent civilian children in Gaza, needs to be taken with several grains of disbelief.

Garas is a freelance writer and commentator in Australia's capital city






Be a part of our San Diego Jewish World!

Between 2,000 and 3,000 visitors read our online news service every day. With your help, we would like to give them even more to read.

We are looking for more volunteer writers and photographers, and more commissioned advertisting sales personnel.

If you'd like to join our team, please express your interest in an email to Donald H. Harrison, our editor and publisher, at sdheritage@cox.net. It doesn't matter where you live, so long as you have a Jewish story to tell. And, as anyone who reads our masthead knows, there's a Jewish story everywhere!







THE JEWISH CITIZEN

The Farrakhan and Wright wedge issue

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO—The dust-up between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is worth mulling.  Obama was questioned in their televised debate earlier this week about an endorsement he received from Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam.  Obama responded that he has denounced Farrakhan for his anti-Semitism, and that he counts members of Illinois’ Jewish community among his strongest supporters.

Furthermore, he said that he has spoken in Black churches about the need to restore the historic, Civil Rights-era partnership among Blacks and Jews, and that he is a strong supporter of Israel.

Clinton didn’t dispute Obama on any of this, but said when she was running for the U.S. Senate in New York, she rejected an endorsement from a small political party that was tinged with anti-Semitism.   She said that Obama ought to reject Farrakhan.

To this Obama responded that he didn’t see much difference between denouncing Farrakhan and rejecting him, but that he would concede the point, and he would both denounce and reject him.  That seemed to settle the matter for the applauding audience at Cleveland State University.

At our household, we wished that NBC Network interviewers Brian Williams and Tim Russert had followed up their question to also ask Obama about his feelings toward his own minister, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Wright has honored Farrakhan and has called the NOI leader’s perspective on African American affairs “helpful and honest.”   It has been reported that Obama’s relationship with Wright is so close that he privately prayed with him before deciding to campaign for President.

Political candidates don’t want to alienate any block of voters, be they Jewish or Black and so such “wedge” questions make them cringe.  Obama, in particular, has been campaigning on the contention that he can unite people across racial and religious boundaries.   One can understand why denouncing or rejecting his own minister would be an anathema to him. 

Nevertheless, for those who have seen too many candidates say one thing, then do another, Obama’s rejection of Farrakhan but continued embrace of Wright raises an  unsettling question.  How much of what he says about Jews and Israel is simply election rhetoric—a recognition that Jews live in key Electoral College states and that we vote?  In private, how deep are his and Wright’s ideological bonds?

I raise the question because I honestly don’t know the answer, and I’m hoping that someone from our community with personal knowledge of Obama will share his or her experiences.  If you ever want to get a case of heartburn read old newspaper clippings, as I have had occasion to do, about Jimmy Carter when he was campaigning for President in 1975 and 1976.  Back then, you’d have thought he was a Zionist, but we all know today what his real feelings about Jews and Israel are.

I’m troubled that Obama has chosen Zbigniew Brzezinski as one of his top campaign advisors on foreign policy.  While Brzezinski was Carter’s national security advisor, he never impressed me as a friend of Israel.

Although the Clintons also  have disappointed me over the years—for example, Bill Clinton never fulfilled his promise to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and who can forget Hillary’s embrace of Suha Arafat?—I nevertheless felt that they have a certain chemistry with us Jews.  In particular, I shall always remember how deep a connection—almost like son to father—that Bill Clinton seemed to feel for Yitzhak Rabin.  I still get choked up remembering his “Shalom chaver” eulogy at Rabin’s funeral.  I sincerely believe that Hillary shares her husband love for Israel.

As the elections keep rolling up Obama victories, I have a foreboding that the choice will come down to two people whose true feelings about Jews are equally vague.  John McCain has stated the belief that the United States was created as a “Christian nation,” but I can’t imagine how he got such an idea, except perhaps by listening to right-wing  talk radio.  The genius of the American Constitution is that it requires the government to be religiously neutral.

It appears that there will be the following dichotomy in the general election:  McCain will come out strong on Israel, whereas Obama’s support will be stated in more equivocal terms.   On the other hand, Obama will stand up for the constitutional principle precluding the establishment of a state religion, thereby drawing a contrast with McCain. 

In a theoretical matchup between Obama and  McCain, where is a Jew to go?  Do we vote for someone who seems to disagree with most of us on a major domestic issue—maintaining a religiously neutral government—or do we vote for someone who may be persuaded by his advisors (both the religious ones and the political ones)  to make U.S. policy less supportive  of  Israel in its struggle against terrorism—or, as these advisors will put it, more “even-handed” in its Mideast diplomacy toward the Arabs.

Somehow, the stakes in this election seem higher than those that of many previous elections.

Harrison is editor and publisher of San Diego Jewish World









POLITICAL GROTTO


Big business, baseball don't faze Doshay—
but accepting praise is another matter