Moving this post back in time where it belongs. A sequel to come soon...
It is not a big secret that Israel is at crossroads where the plans of dealing with unending efforts of Gazan rocket scientists are concerned. Israeli civilians are being shamelessly targeted, the "freedom fighters" use their own civilians as a shield, and our government doesn't decide. Even people who supported the disengagement once are doubting their own sanity now.
My post on Seth Freedman incendiary article caused some off-line comments, and one of the commenters challenged me to post his opinion on the way to deal with the situation. So, here it comes, and I would like the readers to respond as actively as possible.
The daily shellings of innocent Israelis in Sderot and other southern settlements by the terrorists of Gaza have been tolerated by an impotent Israeli government for some time now. Thus far, no serious actions have been undertaken to stop the shellings. Whatever actions have been taken or suggested to date (eg, decreasing delivery of electricity and fuel, killing a few terrorists) have been ineffective. In my opinion it is not possible to stop these terrorists by using "democratic" principles. Even decreasing the supply of electricity/fuel will be fruitless since the terrorists will first use the little energy left to produce and fire kassam rockets before helping the civilian population. To provide the Israelis of the south with what they deserve (to live in peace with security), it is necessary to mobilize the "non-terrorist" residents of Gaza, who in the interim provide cover for the terrorists.
I offer the following solution. For every rocket that leaves Gaza, an area of one square kilometer (or some other substantial amount of area) should be demolished by Israeli air strikes/missiles (no reason to endanger young soldiers' lives in hand to hand combat with suicide terrorists who have no respect for human life). All infrastructure in this area should be flattened. If innocent Arabs are killed (even in the thousands), that is unfortunate. But the blame will lie squarely on the shoulders of the terrorists. This policy should be implemented until the local Gaza residents stop the shellings on their own (eg, by fighting the terrorists) or until Gaza is fully demolished.
There are those who will argue that the innocent Arabs who die will be unjustly punished. That is correct. But inherent in this argument is that it is OK for innocent Jews of southern Israel to die instead. This is unacceptable. Someone must pay the price of the shellings and as the Israelis are the ones being attacked, it seems most logical (and just) that the Arabs pay the price. Of course, if someone can come up with an equally effective solution with less bloodshed, I would be happy to reconsider my solution. To date, I have not seen a reasonable alternative.
Avraham Katz
41 minutes ago