The second handicap for Israel is the global media war. For Hamas, the images of Palestinian suffering – of people losing their homes, of parents mourning their dead children, of tanks rolling through the streets – create sympathy for their cause.
In a battle marked by street-to-street fighting, the death of innocents is all but inevitable. That is also true of Gaza. And these deaths have led some to call for Israel to be charged with war crimes by an international tribunal.
But I am curious: Why do we never hear calls for Hamas leaders to be charged with war crimes?
Why, for example, do we hear no calls for human rights investigations into Hamas gunmen using Palestinian children as human shields? Why so few stories on the reports of Hamas assassins going to hospitals to hunt down their fellow Palestinians? And where are the international human rights groups demanding that Hamas stop blurring the most fundamental line in warfare: the distinction between civilian and combatant?
I suspect the answer has to do with the same grim logic that leads Hamas to provoke a military battle it knows it cannot win. Whether Israel is ever found guilty of any war crime hardly matters. Hamas gets a propaganda win simply by having the charge made often and loudly enough.
In this, Israel finds itself in much the same position the United States found itself in Iraq before the surge. There, al Qaeda realized that it was in its interests to provoke sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni – no matter what the cost to innocent Iraqis.
That is the nature of terror. And what we are seeing in Gaza is just one front in this much larger war.
In the West, we are used to thinking that Israel cannot survive without the help of Europe and the United States. Maybe we should start wondering whether we in Europe and the United States can survive if we allow the terrorists to succeed in Israel.
In this new century, the “West” is no longer a matter of geography. The West is defined by societies committed to freedom and democracy. That at least is how the terrorists see it. And if we are serious about meeting this challenge, we would expand the only military alliance committed to the defense of the West to include those on the front lines of this war. That means bringing countries such as Israel into NATO.
I do not pretend to have all the answers to Gaza. But I do know this: The free world makes a terrible mistake if we deceive ourselves into thinking this is not our fight.
In the end, the Israeli people are fighting the same enemy we are: cold-blooded killers who reject peace, who reject freedom. and who rule by the suicide vest, the car bomb, and the human shield.
Against such an enemy, I will not second-guess the decisions of a free Israel defending her citizens. And I would ask all those who support peace and freedom to do the same.