JustASC

Strong editorial in the Forward. Gets past the rhetoric that Hamas rockets were a mere “nuisance” to Israelis to show how Hamas was beefing up its arsenal:

Those new rockets are the reason Israel had to go to war when it did. They are the reason that Hamas arms smuggling rose to the top of the cease-fire negotiators’ agenda. They are the reason Egypt was finally forced this month to acknowledge its responsibility for securing its border with Gaza, after years of stonewalling. They are the reason that France and Turkey volunteered to put their troops in harm’s way on the Gaza border, to protect Israel from Hamas terrorism. When push comes to shove, Hamas is the problem, not Israel.

And then there is this reminder:

…[W]hatever the public felt, the civilian deaths didn’t drive the negotiators’ agenda. Civilians make up about 25% of deaths in the Gaza conflict, according to United Nations figures cited in European newspapers. By comparison, civilians make up 67% of the dead in America’s Iraq War and were 80% in Russia’s Chechnya wars. The negotiators knew that.