Total War (UPDATED)

"The Survivor" by George Grosz 1944, Private Collection

 

SUNDAY JULY 2ND UPDATE: Israel strike hits Palestinian PM office. Ahem.

'Israel warns: free soldier or PM dies', blasts the headline this morning. It seems that President Putin is not the only one who takes terrorists killing his soldiers seriously, rejecting the ever popular 'stop or I'll say stop again' tactic of the E.U.

The target, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, responds with the shrill accusation that Israel is waging a "Total War". Total war? Yeah right.

'Total War' describes a war unrestricted in terms of the weapons used, the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the laws of war are disregarded. It perfectly describes what Hamas and Fatah deceivingly call 'resistance' against Israel.

If despite General Elazar’s dictum [the Chief of Staff, Beirut 1973 said: "Israel won’t play by the rules of partial war; wars are not won with a strong defense.”], contemporary Israelis keep playing by the rules of partial war, and refuse to fight their enemies by the rules of the region in which they live, both the conflict and the innocent civilian casualties will continue until the end of time.

Hamas does not care if its irredentist terrorism kills or causes Israel to kill innocent civilians, but Israel waging 'total war' against the murdering thugs; I only wish they would. Of course the demand of the release of 1000 Arabs in return for the life of one Israeli soldier, puts their total disconnect with reality into vital perspective.

In truth, the opposite is happening. Israel is acting prudently, intelligently and with utmost restraint by picking up those who are responsible for Sunday's raid. In doing so, Israel is sending a clear message to the masterminds, which in a nutshell has this to say: If you think that you can hide behind your own people acting as human shields to evade responsibility for every savage crime against our people, you are mistaken. Know this, every time you commit another heinous act of violence, we will find and apprehend the masterminds and put a bullet between their eyes.

Why is this the right response? Consider the alternatives.

(1)  Israel doesn't act militarily, but looks to the international community to reign Hamas in, all the while vehemently protesting and appealing to the UN Security Council to issue a strong worded condemnation. Definitely what Hamas had hoped for, which is a reflection of their perception of Ehud Olmert's dovish qualities as a leader.

The result would be empty speeches and more Arab grandstanding before fellow Muslim lobby members during Security Council meetings. Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad certainly wasn't too perturbed when the SC condemned his call to wipe Israel off the map.

Furthermore, it would green-light a new wave of kidnappings of both Israeli civilians and IDF personnel wherever Hamas could lay their dirty mitts on them.

(2)  Israel brings total war to the Palestinians, literally. The likely result would be a short-lived international outcry, long-term security for Israelis on permanently expanded territories and business a usual in the way Jews all over the world would continue to face rabid anti-Semitic outburst of hatred and xenophobia. Definitely my recommendation, but in direct contravention to everything what both Israel as a sovereign state and Judaism as a Religion stand for; at the very least, Israel is restrained by their own Holocaust legacy.

But, Olmert knows, that Israel doesn't have a choice in the matter, lest you forget, that it is dealing with an adversary whose sole purpose of existence is to bring about its total destruction.

Japan didn't attack Pear Harbor for reasons anywhere remotely resembling the Hamas Charter, but for their misguided assumption that the United States, having lost so much, would sue for peace, leaving them to plunder Asia and Australia at will. In turn, the U.S. most certainly didn't wish to exterminate the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, despite over 200,000 deaths following the nuclear blast on August 1945. In fact, to my knowledge there exists hardly any precedent in recent history for any foe to wage war on the express proclamation which prioritizes the murder of an entire population ahead of territorial gains.

Israel doesn't have a choice but to crush any notion in the perverted and depraved minds of the Palestinians, who condone and applaud any harm befalling Israelis in particular and Infidels in general, that kidnapping Israelis, civilians and soldiers alike, may yield any kind of bargaining advantage for their genocidal cause. Period.

Meanwhile, the murdering thugs say the kidnapped IDF soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit is well and his life is not in danger. Well, they need to say that because they know that their move has backfired. As my good friend Antimedia said: "Perhaps Palestine has finally reaped the whirlwind they've been sowing for decades".

Hamas leaders both in Gaza and in Damascus are trying to take their head our of the executioner's sling by staging one bogus exchange proposal after the other, knowing that the game would be up if the world were to receive definitive proof of Cpl. Gilad Shalit's death. But it's too late already; "This time, they have burnt themselves", concludes my friend Ed Morrissey. He's right.

Don't miss reading my Trilogy: 'Israel Cannot Succeed By Empowering Terrorists', the second part 'Pallywood Does Not Recognize Israel' and the third 'The Palestinian-Spin-Of-The-Century' The World's Most Audacious Marketing Coup'

Comments

[Ymarsakar]

Israel should do this.

Tell Hamas and the Palestinians they are willing to deal in exchange for the body of their soldier, but that they need to have the names of the 1,000 people that has been demanded to be released on paper, and in public. This should be broadcast to the UN, let sit for 4 days as an entire week's worth of news cycles beat into it.

Then...

When Israel gets that list of people with names and pictures. Israel should hold summary executions of all 1,000 names and faces, broadcasted nationally or just posted on youtube or a website. This should last about a month or so if you can get a few a day.

Israel should then say to the world,

"when a terroist demands that you be released from jail, you might as well slit your own throats" Or/

Durka Durka, Muhammed Jihad. Sherpa Sherpa, bak allad. (as an alternative version)

How's that for Law and Order? Then do Total War. I wrote a response to Melanie Phillip's post about the same subject, Israel's restraint here

I just think if you act weak and shed blood in the water, the sharks will get you.

[mika.]

Wretchard over at the Belmont Club, has a good Post and Discussion on the asymmetrical warfare that Jihadis wage against Israel and the West in general. The post is titled Or What's a Uniform For? and is dated Thursday, June 29, 2006.

Here's an excerpt:

Shaun D. Mullen writes:
.
.
"Thirdly, Chester hits a very big nail on the head when he states that Hamdan is a turning point in the application of war conventions and treaties and implicit in that is that soverign states that play by the rules are most vulnerable in the face of non-state organizations that don't.

My view is that for the time being we're stuck with our conventions and treaties just like the police are stuck with their rules and regulations even when going against the most depraved serial killer. As Wretchard notes, privateering is not desirable, but it may be inevitable."

In reply, Occam's Whiskers writes:

"To say that these jihadi terror organization are non-state organizations is to be completely ignorant of their history and how they come into being. I'm amazed Wretchard has let that comment slide. All the terror groups born in the ME have ties to Secret Service organizations in their respective client States."

I think that is something we need to remember.

[Alexandra]

Papa Ray, welcome back you have commented on here many times, I hope it wasn't such a forgettable experience..LOL

I unfortunately agree that Cpl Shalit is dead. The game begins when this is announced or the video produced. For the moment, we only have this: Israel strike hits Palestinian PM office.

[Papa Ray]

Hey,

New here, just found you.

I have no idea what's really going on. I doubt anyone does.

But here is what I think is going on:

"Corporal Gilad Shalit is well and his life is not in danger" is a lie.

He's dead.

That fact may be even not known by most of the PA. but now what do they do?

I suspect that they will say at some point that he was killed by a missile or bomb fired by Israel, and their will be little left of him for an investigation.

Then what, will that make Israel stop?

Or not, will the Lion of Israel destroy the killers of her children?

With the present leadership in Israel, I don't think so.

Papa Ray
West Texas
USA

[Michael van der Galien]

Liquid I agree, Israel could use our prayers.

The threat to take Haniyeh out is a logical result of Haniyeh's criminal acts in the past against Israel. He is responsible for the deaths of more than one Israeli civilians.

When the PRC kidnapped Shalit, Haniyeh publicly supported the kidnappers. When terrorists are firing qassams on a daily basis towards Israel, he publicly supports it.
He is co-responsible for the kidnapping of Corporal Shalit.

Some say 'he was democratically elected'. So what. Democratically elected terrorism still is terrorism.

Good post A! ;)

[Liquid]

Keep Israel in your prayers!

[epaminondas]

Talk is pointless with those who mean you to convert, pay the tax or die, especially when they are in the middle of killing you since you have already eliminated the first two.

Israel should get 1.3 million tents and drop them in the egyptian desert just outside the gaza border.

Then just warm up the tanks....and KILL Meshal.

[Scout]

Gringoman: "Might the coming Russian and Israeli actions have any affect on Americans?"

Will we ever wake up? I don't know. Some of the methods of dealing with the problem outlined in this post may at first seem unworthy of a liberal democracy (liberal in the classic sense, please), but are they really? Is it not possible that there would be less death, destruction, and misery using the "heavy-handed" methods, particularly on the "enemy" side? Weren't millions of Japanese lives "saved" through the use of nuclear weapons, thereby avoiding the necessity of an invasion of the home islands? So what is in end effect the more humane approach -- other than surrender, which is what the Left apparently supports?

Overwhelming violence, precisely applied, rationally managed, and audaciously executed has another very positive deterrent effect. There is an old saying about wars: They are _never_ started because someone is too strong. They are almost always started because of the perception that someone is too weak (which may or may not be true). This concept is at least as old as Sun Tzu and is still valid today.
The Islamofascists have perceived that the Occident is weak and unable to defend itself; they've believed it for years. Many of our actions are unfortunately not convincing them otherwise. Our humanity, generousity, and compassion even in battle are perceived as weakness, thus exacerbating the problem.

[Jeremayakovka]

Romans with a kosher sensibility. - That's more like it.

Israel brings total war to the Palestinians, literally. The likely result would be .... in direct contravention to everything what both Israel as a sovereign state and Judaism as a Religion stand for; at the very least, Israel is restrained by their own Holocaust legacy. - Alexandra, I don't get your generalized word choice here. "Direct contravention"? "Everything" Israel stands for? No need to be lady-like. Time to go from that "middle finger raised" you sometimes assert to an entire fist raised, raised and brought down on whole swaths of Hamastanis. The only practical reason to threaten Hamastan's PM with assassination is that the threat is a bargaining chip to preserve Shalit's life - if he is alive. Other than that, no mercy on these Arab welfare queens. Scorched earth not until Shalit is turned over, but until the top Hamastanis are killed or imprisoned (How do you say Guantanamo in Hebrew, anyone? or Spandau?) and the remaining Hamastanis recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce terror.

[Matt]

Sorry, my auto trackback thing seems to be having issues and is sending the wrong link. I linked to you in the post here:

http://www.blogmosis.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-view.cgi/1/entry/32361

[gringoman]

Is it “go get ‘em” time in the Middle East? And is it not only the Israelis, re-awakening after a quarter century to a spirit something like Romans with a kosher sensibility? ( Do not wince. The Romans, you'll recall, were not just imperial legions. Many became true settlers in places very far from Rome, bringing with them the emblems of civilization--- and not just the Roman eagle.) Now even the Russians, albeit in a much more limited way, have announced they plan to hunt down and take out the kidnappers and murderers of their four Embassy workers in Baghdad. Details from gringoMoskva in “Russians Hunt Iraq Jihadis”. (Putin apparently is reviving an old Russian tradition of tracking down terrorists anywhere on earth. The Russians, despite old ties to Saddamites, and opposing U.S. invasion of Iraq, are sounding pretty fed up with U.S. (read 'Bush'?) continued inability to pacify Baghdad, Sunni country etc. They appear rather insensitive to the U.S. (read 'Bush'?)practice of politically correct warfare.)

Might the coming Russian and Israeli actions have any affect on Americans?

gringoman on July 1, 2006 at 11:27 AM

[Francis W. Porretto]

I must differ with this assessment. Israel should not have threatened to assassinate Haniyeh. It should simply have gone ahead and done so.

One cannot negotiate profitably with an implacable enemy. HAMAS, and the wider Palestinian populace that supports it, will not back away from their push-the-Jews-into-the-sea stance for any reason short of utter, humiliating military defeat. If the Israelis are no longer affected by the strident condemnations from the "international community," but aren't yet ready to subjugate the Palestinians completely, their only other option is TIT!!-for-tat.

"If they pull a knife, you pull a gun. If they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue. That’s the Chicago way." [From The Untouchables]

Whenever any Palestinian group commits any sort of atrocity or outrage against Israelis, the IDF should select half a dozen highly placed Palestinian officials, always including the present prime minister, and simply eliminate them. If the ratio is sufficiently dramatic, it might penetrate the Palestinians' heads that they're playing a losing game.

Of course, the Palestinians might be too stupid, or too firmly wedded to their conviction of invincibility, to draw the lesson, but the option of a truly total war would always be available to Israel.

[antimedia]

The difference between Israel and the US is this. Israel has paid a heavy, heavy price for its "humanity" and "civility". They now appear to have had enough. America will have to lose many, many more lives before it reaches that point. In the mean time, the mufsidun may continue to kill with impunity, and their hirabah will continue.