Israel's War of Survival - Best Quotes From Around the Internet

The Conflict in a Nutshell

Israel has been attacked by two Syrian-supported terrorist organizations, Hizbollah in the North, along the Lebanese border, and by Hamas in the South, from Gaza. Terrorists from both these organizations crossed the border into Israel and killed and kidnapped Israeli soldiers. In addition to this, Hizbollah and Hamas have been firing rockets into Israeli civilian population centers. (Why? To kill Jews and punish Israel for existing.)

The rockets are manufactured and supplied by Syria. Israel's bombing of the Beirut airport and its blockade of Lebanon are designed to stop the arrival of more rockets from Syria. Israel's strategy has three aims: (1) to stop the rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza, (2) push Hizbollah and Hamas back from the borders with Israel, and (3) to secure the release of its kidnapped soldiers.

Both Hamas and Hizbollah are funded and sponsored by Iran and are actually proxies for Iran's desire to eradicate the State of Israel.

Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism and allows the head of Hamas to live in its territory. For that reason it is possible that Israel may decide to attack Syria. Syria is in turn sponsored by Iran, whose radical President has vowed "to wipe Israel off the map." Iran has indicated it may enter the conflict if Syria is attacked. The possibility of a wider and more serious war is therefore possible.

Here's what other writers are saying about the conflict:

From David Horowitz

Decent Americans will cheer the Israeli armies on

The New York Times, adopting the Kerry position on the war on terror, is already questioning Israel's war of self-defense because it isn't limiting itself to releasing its kidnapped soldiers and punishing the individuals responsible. This is the war on terror should be a criminal operation point of view. The Times wants to ignore the fact that the Palestinians in their majority have elected a criminal government which is responsible for these criminal acts, or that the governments of Syria and Iran are behind them too. Analogy would be if the Times of 1940 had urged the British to limit their response to the Blitz to the arrest of the pilots who actually dropped the bombs. This is the voice of appeasement and worse.

From Powerline

One striking fact about the Religion of Peace is how relatively few of its adherents are unequivocally opposed to terrorism, always and everywhere. It seems that for most Muslims, even those who stoutly oppose terror elsewhere, terrorism directed against Israel is only freedom fighting. (To be fair, this could be said of quite a few non-Muslim Europeans, too.)

From National Review Online

Israel has to prove that it is a sovereign state, not to be trifled with or subjected to the bargaining of the Middle East bazaar. In short, it has to reinvigorate its deterrent threat against its enemies that has been vitiated by its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and its weak response to provocations since then.

The overpowering of Hezbollah might lead Hamas’s sponsors around the Middle East to conclude that they can’t engage in a proxy war against Israel with impunity. If not, the targeted killings of Mashaal and his lieutenants in Syria would be appropriate, and other targets there might beckon as well. It is right to eliminate terror masters, and beyond that, the weakening and humiliation of its wretched Syrian stooge would be a suitable reward to Iran for its mischief-making.

From Real Clear Politics

The War Comes To Us

Iran has revealed its hand, challenging the US and its allies and openly demonstrating its desire to dominate the Middle East through force and terror. While we have been trying to delay the war with Iran, it has brought the war to us, in a manner so obvious that even the mainstream media cannot evade it.

In doing so, they have made their threat to America and its interests more obvious and more urgent--providing a stronger case for war than their nuclear program could provide. There can be no question here about whether Iran really has aggressive designs in the Middle East, whether it really seeks the weapons to attack the US and its allies, and how long it might take for such a threat to materialize. The threat is here and Iran's newest war on the West has already begun.

Iran is risking everything on this new strategy, and the only hope they have of success is the expectation that, as they bring the war closer and closer to America, we won't fight back.

But that means that we have an easy way to blow their strategy to smithereens.

All we have to do is to start fighting back.