The gross insult in the entire affair in Gaza is that most media buy into the Netanyahu propaganda point that this is a war. Wars are fought between nations, between governments or between armies organized by one of the former entities. Hamas is neither a government nor a representative body of any Palestinian constituency. Hamas is not an organized military by any stretch of the definition, and the only task of which it is capable is the wholesale slaughter of unarmed civilians: a hallmark of imbeciles, not of trained soldiers. Hamas’s ineptitude at conducting warfare is manifested repeatedly when they have to be ferreted out by force from hospitals and schools and by the ease with which Israel has reduced the region to rubble.
The military incursion into Gaza is just that: a military incursion. It is not a war. In the absence of any military resistance, the Israeli military is not conducting war. It is just as gross an insult to the Israeli military to pretend that Hamas’s imbeciles are worthy adversaries. Those who accept the “war” ascription are deprecating the vaunted Israeli military to the level of Hamas’s imbecile terrorists. It will be a point of shame and utter humiliation for the Israeli army to assert that it is fighting a worthy adversary.
Thus, it is abundantly clear why Netanyahu calls it a war. Such a declaration delays the parliamentary vote that would remove him from power, delays the corruption trial for which is standing, and appeases his radical base by laying waste to Palestinians. (This latter provisions is particularly perverse because much of Netanyahu’s base refuses to enlist in the military.) Calling this military incursion a “war” also protects Netanyahu from having to provide a justification for this military action. By repeating this fallacy of war, the press absolve themselves of the task of questioning whether this military campaign achieves any effective and efficient solution to the Hamas problem, when it manifestly does not: Hamas’s gang of goons could very easily have been expunged slowly over time with far fewer casualties on both sides.
The only way forward is to have a sober assessment of the present.
The military operation in Gaza is not a war.
Hamas’s terrorist imbeciles are not worthy adversaries for Israel’s military
It is wrong to deprecate the Israeli military to the level of worthless terrorists like Hamas.
The military incursion is nothing but a vehicle to provide political cover to one man: Benjamin Netanyahu. As such, it a gross insult to the notion of war and to the soldiers who wage war.
As the Vietnam war did to the United States, the military incursion in Gaza will profoundly diminish Israel’s standing in the world for generations after exacting exorbitant, irreversible tolls on its military and its economy.
Israel’s military said on Wednesday it had killed around 90 gunmen and arrested 160 in a raid on Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital, an allegation the Islamist Hamas group denied.
