Israel Acts Appropriately To Crush Hamas Terrorism

All we need to do to determine that Israel has acted appropriately in its attempts to crush Hamas terrorism and force the safe return of a kidnapped Israeli soldier is to ask ourselves what we would do, were Mexicans for months on end be firing rockets at American territory and then kidnaping Americans on American territory.

Suppose also that the Mexican government was giving its open support to such operations, and, then, having kidnapped an American soldier was telling us that we had to release Mexican prisoners just for information about him, with no assurance that he would be safely released. Suppose also, that a second kidnap victim, an 18-year-old American, had been murdered and his body left on a Mexican street.

Who can doubt that we would send the U.S. Army into Mexico and take all steps necessary to end these acts of war against us?

All these kinds of things have been happening to Israel. The only difference is, the perpetrator is the Hamas "government," not Mexico.

The New York Times goes part of the way to understand the Israeli actions in its editorial this morning, but the Los Angeles Times, under the contemptible editorial direction of Andres Martinez and Chicago-lining publisher Jeff Johnson, puts its prime emphasis on calls for Israeli restraint.

But restraint would only encourage Hamas and lead to even worse attacks. Both of these papers are not only failing to fully stand by beleaguered Israel, they are not supporting the United States in its efforts to subdue Arab terrorism.

In fact, L.A. Times editorials on the current conflict are so cravenly weak that they may create the impression among our enemies that they could launch a terrorist strike against Los Angeles, and we wouldn't react very forcefully. Thus, I don't believe I'm overstating things when I say the weakness of the L.A. Times editorial pages endangers Los Angeles.

For many years now, adherents of barbaric Islamic fundamentalism have undertaken outrageous actions -- kidnappings, suicide bombings, assassinations -- without an adequately forceful response from either the U.S. or Israel.

What we have done, vigorous as it appears to us, has not been enough to bring these acts to an end. In fact, the psychopathic violence is only increasing and spreading to new parts of the world. This is not really surprising, because psychopaths often react to restraint by increasing their violence.

It is not too much to say there is a very great danger that these people, if they were to acquire nuclear weapons or deadly chemicals or biological weapons, would use them against us.

Therefore, there can be no restraint in our responses, unless we want to see the present situation worsen and the threat grow.

We must hope the Israeli actions will show the religious thugs and extremists that they must halt their actions, or face destruction. If they return the soldier, Gilad Shalit, safely and stop all other attacks, then we can all return to the negotiating table.