From JPost.com » Opinion » Editorials May 15, 2008:
...Fifteen Israelis were wounded Wednesday - four seriously - by a Grad-model rocket that hit a shopping center in Ashkelon just hours after US President George W. Bush arrived to celebrate the state's 60th anniversary. Southern District Police chief Cmdr. Uri Bar-Lev said the rocket, fired from Beit Lahiya, had been made in Iran.
The attack on Ashkelon, a city of 120,000, came two days after 69-year-old Shuli Katz of Moshav Yesha was killed by a Kassam rocket. Her death followed the killing of Jimmy Kedoshim last Friday as he did his weekend gardening in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
One is hard-pressed to think of another country that would tolerate such a relentless barrage....
THE CURRENT Israeli policy - to absorb damage and casualties, try to strike at rocket launchers and gunmen in Gaza and periodically declare, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did on Wednesday, that the assaults are "entirely intolerable"- is no longer viable.....
... Vice Premier Haim Ramon was right when he declared on Thursday: "We have to put an end to the Hamas government." ... Israel's necessary course of action is clear:...a series of escalating steps beginning with the elimination of Hamas's key leaders, and continuing with relentless artillery fire at the sources of rocket launches, while making every effort to minimize civilian casualties.
Ultimately, so long as the danger persists, "putting an end to the Hamas government" may necessitate temporarily retaking some or even all of the Strip.
All this must be accompanied by public diplomacy, stressing that Israel has no long-term interest in occupying Gaza, and that such action in defense of sovereign Israel's citizenry...
...Experience has long since shown that Israeli vulnerability and indecisiveness invite aggression....
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