Rockets and Retaliation in Gaza

A week ago, there was relative quiet between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Today there is war, with Israelis and Gazans in the line of fire. For the first time since the 1967 Six-Day War, Jerusalem residents ran for cover as Palestinian missiles hit Israel's capital city. Since the 1991 Gulf War, Tel Aviv residents haven't needed to respond to air raid warnings.

Israel has the right — indeed, the moral obligation — to protect its citizens, who have tolerated 12 years of rocket fire from Gaza. Before Wednesday, when Israel retaliated with airstrikes, terrorists fired more than 100 rockets toward Israel, often timed to hit as residents were going to school and work.

"Indisputably, this is a Hamas-initiated conflict. It was a decision it made, and it kept launching rockets, forcing the Israeli response," Daniel Pipes told us; he's the director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, a think tank promoting American interests in the Middle East.

Wars between Israel and its neighbors used to be solely about protecting the existence of Israel — it wasn't always clear that Israel would be the victor. Recent wars, however, have carried the foregone conclusion that Israel will win. The unknown factor, according to Pipes, is who wins politically in a conflict that plays out in boycotts, demonstrations and U.N.

"Why would Hamas take on the [Israeli military]? Because they think they can gain politically," Pipes argued. "If Hamas wins politically, then they'll decide to do it again. They're accepting that they'll get a bloody nose."

Critics argue that Israeli response to rocket fire is disproportional.

"Every once in a while there will be small rockets," Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told us. "Let's put things into perspective — these are homemade rockets that have not caused deaths in recent times except for now, in this recent conflict, which did not start because of rockets. It started because of Israelis crossing into Gaza to assassinate one of the Hamas leaders."

Ahmed Jabari's assassination Wednesday wasn't unexpected. The deputy leader of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, a military arm of Hamas, had gone to extremes to avoid detection.

"The notion this started because of the assassination of a Hamas leader is demonstrably false," Steven Emerson, executive director of the Investigative Project on Terror, told us. He says that criticism from groups like CAIR is typical and ignores Hamas' missiles. These missiles, moreover, have the range to hit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, suggesting the smuggling of much more sophisticated, long-range weapons into Gaza.

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