It's retribution, not aggression

The focus in the Mideast suddenly has shifted away from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the small seven-mile-wide by 20-mile-long strip of desert along the Mediterranean known as the Gaza Strip.

Captured by Israel during the 1967 war (along with the West Bank), the Gaza strip is the heart of the Hamas movement, whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel and the extinction of the Jews who live there.

Three years ago, Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza and abandoned its extensive network of settlement there (sometimes having to use force to remove the Jewish settlers). It did so in the hopes that such a move would bring peace to the region. But Hamas saw it as a "victory" and actually intensified its attacks on Israel, using waves of suicide bombers that forced Israel to close its borders to Gaza residents. Since many of those residents worked in Israel, that caused considerable economic hardship in Gaza, which Hamas has exploited. And when they could not longer kill Israelis with suicide bombers, they began launching missiles, crude and inaccurate but nevertheless capable of killing the civilians they targeted. In recent months, the number of missile attacks grew to up to 200 a day.

Finally, Israel had had enough, and launched punitive air strikes two weeks ago and a ground operation this week.

Hamas cried foul, portraying itself as an innocent victim to Israeli aggression. Other Arab nations chimed in and, weirdly enough, so did much of the rest of the international community. It was if they had every right in the world to attack Israel, but any retaliation was clearly nothing more than naked, unprovoked Israeli aggression. The Big Lie goes a long ways in the Mideast.

Imagine if some group in Tijuana began launching missiles into southern California. Would we put up with it for more than a year? No. We'd flatten Tijuana in a heartbeat and not think twice about it. But somehow, in the court of public opinion, including some parts of the United States' public, Israel is apparently supposed to just take it.

The civilian casualties in this Gaza invasion are appalling, but a product of a war Hamas brought upon itself (and the fact that only the United States has the capability to be "surgical" and prevent large-scale civilian casualties while making war).

All war is terrible, but Hamas bears primary responsibility for what has happened. If Hamas wants to lead an independent Palestinian nation it should start acting like a responsible government and not a mere terrorist group.

And until it, and the people who support it, decides that peace is preferable to killing, it can expect to be held accountable for its actions. The Mideast, after all, is the home of "an eye for an eye," which unfortunately, has made everyone there a little blind to realities.

-- Kelly Everitt