Battlefield Affirmative Action

A cease fire in the current hostilities between Israel and Hamas was announced a few hours ago. It will accomplish nothing, except to give the Palestinian terrorist group a chance to re-arm by smuggling still more long range rockets from Iran. Incredibly, Hillary Clinton has "negotiated" an agreement that has the Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood policing the Gaza border to keep weapons smuggling from happening. Yeah ... right.

Throughout 2012 and prior to recent hostilities, Hamas and its sister terrorist groups in Gaza have launched almost 1000 rockets with the intent of killing Israeli citizens. I was in Eilat, Israel in April when one such rocket landed with a very loud explosion in an empty field. Israel did not respond to that rocket or hundreds of others.

Finally, it did something that Barack Obama has done dozens of times in Afghanistan—it used a weaponized drone to assassinate the terrorist leader of Hamas. When rocket fire escalated, Israel finally acted with precision air power, destroying missiles sites purposely embedded in civilian neighborhoods, next to schools, hospital, and mosques. Even with precision weapons and great skill, collateral damage in the form of civilian deaths had to occur.

These deaths are the fault of Hamas—and Hamas uses them in what Charles Krauthammer calls "Grief Porn." First, Hamas purposely puts Palestinian civilians in harm's way, then when injuries or deaths inevitably occur, it parades the results of its use of human shields to an all too complicit western media. As I mentioned a few posts back, this is standard operating procedure for Hamas.

Worse, far too many Western diplomats and virtually all Leftists condemn Israel for being "disproportionate" in their defensive response. Michael Goodwin discusses the idiocy of this position:

Double standards are par for the course in the Mideast and all the Jew-hating salons from Turtle Bay to Paris. While the hatred is shouted with a clenched fist on the smoldering streets of Gaza City, equally absurd claims are made by striped-pants diplomats and left-leaning sophisticates who insist Israel is guilty of “disproportionate” force because it uses its huge military advantage.

Their argument moves the goal posts. They tacitly accept Israel’s right to respond, but only up to a point. No matter its losses, the Jewish state must never “escalate” because that would be unfair.

Think about that: Affirmative action has come to the battlefield, where the results must be level for the sake of fairness. Coming soon, the demand that Israel turn over half of its weapons to its enemies. Perhaps Hamas would like an Iron Dome of its own?

But none of this comes as a surprise.It's all part of the Groundhog Day feel to this conflict. The only real outcome is more of the same, postponed until Hamas can smuggle still more weapons under the less-than-watchful eye of the Muslim Brotherhood. Someday, when Hamas' weapons become more deadly, Israel will act more forcefully—as it should. That will be the day that affirmative action on the battle field dies. It will also be the day that Hamas will finally meet its bloody end.