THE THINGIST

EIN BRERA

Few Americans know all the reasons for Israel's air strike against Hama targets in Gaza. Some see it as another show of force by a country the United States should no longer support. I hear only too often the code words "no more blank checks" and I wonder when was the check ever blank. Israel is the only democratic ally the United States has in the Middle East. That alone adds translate into valuable currency.

That the reasons go back to the ham fisted doings of the British during the Partition, is too long a story to go into at the moment. The fact is that Hamas, bankrolled and otherwise supported by the Iranian government, has been launching missiles at Israeli civilian targets for eight years. Imagine Cuba hurling Kassams at Florida and you get the picture. No country and certainly not the US would tolerate this state of affairs for so long. In fact, we have gone to war at lesser provocation. Point is, the Israeli action was not arrived at on an impulse. Lest we forget, it was Hamas that refused to renew the cease fire brokered by the Egyptians.

Israelis are well aware that world opinion is, as it has been for centuries, far from objective when it comes to Jews. For example, there was no hue and cry from the world press when the Islamic terrorists in Mumbai sexually mutilated and murdered a young rabbi and his wife. There were no demonstrations in European capitals in support of the victims of missile attacks in Sderot. But there were demonstrations against Israel immediately following the air strikes. For weeks there will be hue and cry all over the world against the "Zionist entity."

It is important to remember that the Israelis had exhausted other possibilities. The blood is the the hands of Ahmadinejad and his Hamas henchmen. No self-respecting Jew rejoices at war. No one in his right mind fails to feel sympathy for the beleaguered Palestinian people Hamas so shamelessly exploits. No decent human being applauds the use of force against civilian targets. Yet Hamas gives Israel no alternative when it shells Israeli civilians, then hides behind Palestinian civilians when the Israeli military retaliates. Will the pc intellectuals if the First World see all these nuances or will their minds be so clouded by partisan propaganda issuing from sources such as Al Jazeera, that they will once again brand Israelis as ruthless aggressors? Quite possibly.

Where does that leave me, a Jew who us relatively safe in the Diaspora?Am I glad that the IAF is beating the tar out of Hamas? Certainly not. Alpha strikes are all very well on a computer screen, but the cost in human lives and the spiritual erosion they occasion is tremendous. Jews are people of peace. The average Palestinian, freed from the evil influence of rogue Moslems of Hamas & Company, no doubt wants what we all want--peace, a modicum of happiness and a healthy share of hope for the future. I grieve for Palestinian victims as I grieve for the young people of the IDF who must carry out these air strikes. Grief or no grief, in this fight, my heart is with Israel. Ein brera, no alternative.