Great Letter Bill! This has to devastate the terrorist and the liberals. You can’t tell one without the other!

America used to determine its own destiny at one time. Widely reported in the Israeli media is the fact that Israeli President Olmert “demanded to get Bush on the phone” when Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was to vote in favor of a UN Security Council resolution (which she herself helped prepare!). “Olmert refused to back down after being told that the president was delivering a lecture in Philadelphia. Bush interrupted his lecture to answer Olmert’s call, the premier said.” This is according to the Israeli media.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231760642497&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Yes Bill Frazier, America can learn from Israel’s strength and determination. Do the rest of the Armed Forces mind if their Commander in Chief and his staff are ordered around by a foreign president?

I would not be surprised to learn that the Israeli offensive into Gaza’s residential areas is actually an encouragement to Hamas. For every civilian/child/non-combatant that the IDF kills or wounds fans the hatred and feelings of oppression of the residents. Launch a rocket attack from next to a school? The IDF will retaliate, but the “fighters” will be long gone-leaving civilians behind to take the brunt of the retaliation. This is actually as clever political move by Hamas-they don’t lose many individuals of value to retaliatory strikes, and Israel brings down the verbal wrath of other nations onto herself by killing civilians.
I anticipate this strike on Gaza ending in a similar manner to Israel’s offensive into Lebanon, weakening their world status (outside the US, in any case) while strengthening the position of Hamas, Fatah, and Hezb’allah.

Bill…you’re obviously a Christian so please enlighten us by explaining how Jesus sees this situation and what Jesus would do???? I think Gandhi had it right “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”. That’s the tragedy here. What Israel is doing will, no doubt, in the short-term weaken Hamas, but in the long term will give Hamas ever more recruits. If you don’t believe me have a look at the history of the British in Ireland. Eventually you have to have a political solution and that means sitting down with people you would never choose to sit down with, even when they’re bombing your cities. Again, ask Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley if they ever thought it possible that one day they would share political power. Once upon a time Fatah (today’s moderates) were considered just as bad a terrorist organization as Hamas is today.

I think the debate about the Israeli offensive has gotten ridiculously polarizing and dotted with stereotypes. People seem to loose all sense of objectivity. For your consideration, two thought experiments from the blogosphere.

First, Stephen Walt over at Foreign Policy:

Imagine that Egypt, Jordan, and Syria had won the Six Day War, leading to a massive exodus of Jews from the territory of Israel. Imagine that the victorious Arab states had eventually decided to permit the Palestinians to establish a state of their own on the territory of the former Jewish state. (That’s unlikely, of course, but this is a thought experiment). Imagine that a million or so Jews had ended up as stateless refugees confined to that narrow enclave known as the Gaza Strip. Then imagine that a group of hardline Orthodox Jews took over control of that territory and organized a resistance movement. They also steadfastly refused to recognize the new Palestinian state, arguing that its creation was illegal and that their expulsion from Israel was unjust. Imagine that they obtained backing from sympathizers around the world and that they began to smuggle weapons into the territory. Then imagine that they started firing at Palestinian towns and villages and refused to stop despite continued reprisals and civilian casualties.

Here’s the question: would the United States be denouncing those Jews in Gaza as “terrorists” and encouraging the Palestinian state to use overwhelming force against them?

Here’s another: would the United States have even allowed such a situation to arise and persist in the first place?

Counter-thought-experiment by Jonathan Zasloff over at the RBC:

WASHINGTON, August 9, 1862 — Bowing to international pressure, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln lifted the Federal Government’s naval blockade against southern rebels, who call themselves the “Confederate States of America.”

European sources, most particularly the British and French governments, have repeatedly condemned the blockade as “disproportionate.” British Chancellor of the Exchequer William E. Gladstone stated that the blockade “may attempt to harm the southern war effort, but it does not take into account the thousands of southern women and children, not to mention Negro slaves, who have suffered enormously because of it.” Reports have been emerging from the south of severe shortages of food and clothing, with thousands of southern children going hungry.

Gladstone continued that the blockade violated international law because it could not pinpoint its harm against Confederate military targets. It is “a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective”. Moreover, he stated, everyone knew that the blockade would cause great suffering and harm to civilians, and this was “excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”

U.S. Minister to the Court of St. James Charles Francis Adams fought a losing rear-guard battle against the pressure, protesting that the southern states were fighting to maintain the slave system. Pro-Confederate Cabinet ministers dismissed this contention as completely irrelevant, arguing that Adams’ argument conflated jus ad bellum with jus in bello. Gladstone was particularly contemptuous of Lincoln, noting that the President’s war aims seemed to be constantly shifting, and could not even commit to emancipating the slaves. “If we were to take into account each side’s war aims,” he mocked, “then each side would simply shift its aims. Both sides claim to be fighting for justice, and we cannot possibly judge the matter.”

He also had little respect for the federal contention that the Confederates were taking food and clothes from children in order to garner sympathy in the European press. “Jus in bello is quite clear on this,” he noted. “The enemy’s failure to adhere to the laws of war does not excuse your own failure.”

“Let us do away with the monstrous device of the blockade,” said Gladstone. He warned that the Cabinet might take stronger measures against the United States, particularly if did not take action against such notorious Union commanders as General William T. Sherman, known for seizing civilian property and for commandeering southern civilians to work on military projects.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis was jubilant at the news. “Of course we are pleased that the Washington tyranny is following international law,” he said in a statement. “But now we will be able to feed our people and survive the onslaught from the Black Republican abolitionists.”

My favorite quote, however is from Megan McArdle at the Atlantic:

“The reflexive tendency to believe in the goodness of whichever group you most identify with is probably evolutionarily necessary, and at any rate, it’s there, and I much doubt that we will abolish it any time soon. But like other evolutionary heuristics, it can do us at least as much harm as good in many circumstances, and I think it needs to be acknowledged before we can even discuss right and wrong.”

Texas.